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From a painting by Albert Rosenthal in the (iovemor's Room at Harrisburg 

after the original in possession of George B. Logan, Pittsburgh 

(In his hand is the first act emancipating slaves in history — 

the Pennsylvania Act of 1780) 



George Bryan 

and 

The Constitution 

of 

Pennsylvania 

1731-1791 



By 

BURTON ALVA KONKLE 



AUTHOR OF 

"The Life and Writings of James Wilson, 1742-1798, 

"David Lloyd and The First Half-Century of 

Pennsylvania, 1656-1731," etc. 



WILLIAM J. CAMPBELL 

PHILADELPHIA 
1922 



r^s's 



Copyright 1922 

By 

Burton Alva Konkle 



0)C!.A639582 



PRINTED IN U. e. A. 

PATTERSON A WHITE 00. 

PHILADELPHIA 



To 

My Wife 

Susan Montague Ferry Konkle 



THE FIRST ABOLITION OF SLAVERY 

A 

Monument 

TO 

George Bryan 

Be it enacted and it is hereby enacted by the Representatives of 
the Freemen of the Commonweahh of Pennsylvania in General 
Assembly met, and by the authority of the same, That all persons, 
as well negroes and mulattoes as others who shall be born within 
this State, from and after the passing of this act, shall not be deemed 
and considered as servants for life or slaves ; and that all servitude 
for life or slavery of children in consequence of their mothers, in 
the case of all children born within this State from and after the 
passing of this act as aforesaid, shall be and hereby is utterly taken 
away, extinguished and forever abolished. 

— Extract from the Act of March 1, 1780, Laws of Pennsylvania, 
advocated, written and its passage secured by 

George Bryan 



Contents 



Chapter 


I. 


Chapter 


II. 


Chapter 


III. 


Chapter 


IV. 


Chapter 


V. 



Chapter 



VI. 



Chapter 


VII. 


Chapter 


VIII. 


Chapter 


IX. 


Chapter 


X. 


Chapter 


XL 


Chapter 


XII. 


Chapter 


XIII. 


Chapter 


XIV. 


Chapter 


XV. 


Chapter 


XVI. 



The Maker Passes and a Defender is Born. 

1731 1 

The Constitution and the Dublin Boy Increase 

in Strength, 1731 9 

He Becomes a Philadelphia Importer and 
Sees Editor Franklin's Republican Ten- 
dencies, 1752 22 

Mr. Bryan Defeats Editor Franklin and 

Holds to the Old Constitution, 1763 42 

As Assembly Leader and Judge, a New Con- 
tinental Upheaval Brings Him Into the 
First Inter-Colonial Congress, 1764 57 

The Subsiding Upheaval Causes a Union of 
Bryan and Proprietary Elements to 
Preserve the Constitution of 1701, 1766 75 

Merchant Bryan Fails While Judge Bryan 
Succeeds as Jurist and Political Leader, 
1769 87 

Judge Bryan and the Opening Revolution, 

1774 99 

Judge Bryan and the Constitutional Conven- / 

vention, 1776 HI '^ 

He Becomes Vice-President of Pennsylvania 

at Philadelphia, 1776 130 

His Second Term as Vice-President at Lan- 
caster, 1777 147 

President of Pennsylvania at Lancaster and 

Philadelphia, 1778 154 

A Third Term as Viec-President and Chief 
Organizer of the Executive Department, 
1778 167 

The Leader and Organizer of the Legislation 

of the Assembly, I, 1779 189 

The Same Continued, II, 1780 208 

A Justice of the Supreme Court and High 
Court of Errors and Appeals of Penn- 
sylvania, 1780 219 



Chapter XVII. Justice Bryan and the Council of Censors, 

1783 251 

Chapter XVIII. The Great Contest, 1784 264 

Chapter XIX. George Bryan and the New Constitution of 

the United States, 1787 299 

Chapter XX. The Fall of the Old Pennsylvania Constitu- 
tution of 1701-76, and His Death, 1789- 
1791 344 



V 



Illustrations 

I. Frontispiece. ^' 

II. Maps of Pennsylvania Showing Counties Organized 

by 1752 16 ^ 

III. An Advertisement of Wallace and Bryan, Importers 20 •""^ 

IV. Governor William Denny 34 "^ 

V. George Bryan's Almanac Diary 36 "^ 

VI. Thomas Willing and George Bryan, Successors of 
Messrs. Galloway and Franklin in Assembly of 

1764 . . • • 58 "^ 

VII. The Philadelphia Court House in Which Judge Bryan 

Sat in 1764 62 

VIII. The City House, New York, in which The Stamp Act 

Congress Met in 1765 68 

IX. Signatures to Stamp Act Congress' Memorial to Tlie 

House of Lords 72 

X. Mantel in the Council Room, in which Vice-President 

Bryan Officiated 138 -•' 

XI. Site of the Court House Capitol in Lancaster, in 

1777-78 148 ' 

XII. President George Bryan, 1777-78, by Rosenthal 154 ■' 

XIII. Map of Boundary of Pennsylvania Determined by the 

Bryan Commission, in 1779 178 "' 

XIV. The State House in 1779, Showing The Assembly Room 

in which Mr. Bryan was Leader 190 ^ 

XV. The Abolition Act (a Section) as First Published 

After Becoming a Law 198 ^ 

XVI. A Commission of Justice Bryan of The Supreme Court . 

of Pennsylvania 222 "^ 

XVII. Justice George Bryan, by Breckenridge 226 

XVIII. Supreme Court Room, State House, and View it Faced 228 ' 
XIX. Cartoon of Justice Bryan, by Judge Francis Hopkin- 

son, 17&4 270 

XX. A Centincl Paper Heading and Signature 310 

XXI. The University of Pennsylvania in 1789 346 

XXII. The Tomb of Justice Bryan and His Wife 358 

XXIII. George Bryan and Abraham Lincoln, The One Began 
and The Other Completed Emancipation of Negro 
Slaves 362 / 



Preface 

As the constitutional history of Pennsylvania is largely 
comprised in the lives of three men, David Lloyd, the father 
of the constitution of 1701 ; George Bryan, its defender and 
the father of the constitution of 1776, and James Wilson, 
the father of that of 1790, as well as the constitution of the 
United States, the proper procedure would have been to 
write the story of their lives in this order, as the present 
writer originally desired to do. Events and circumstances 
called for another course, however, causing the Wilson to 
be begun first, the Lloyd to be finished first and the one be- 
tween, that of Bryan, to be finished last. It was hoped 
that they would appear in their natural order, and certainly 
they should be read in that order, as they are virtually parts 
of a trilogy giving the first complete account of the main 
constitutional story of Pennsylvania. The Lloyd and Bryan 
constitute the story of the first permanent constitution of 
this commonwealth, because the constitution of 1776 is 
merely that of 1701, with the royal and proprietary author- 
ity displaced by that of the people. These two volumes, 
therefore, represent about ninety years of life under what 
was practically the present British theory of a government 
of essentially one house promptly responsive to the chang- 
ing will of the people. The third work, on Wilson, is the 
story of the victory of American political science over this, 
in both state and national constitutions. No other state has 
afforded so unique a constitutional phenomenon, or one more 
full of suggestion for the present day contest between these 
two theories, which is now world wide and has entered the 
field of an international government. The contest still is, 
on the one side, between individual sovereignty and cor- 
porate self-restraint, and on the other, no self-restraint and 
various principles that are the reverse of individual sover- 
eignty. The writer has not succeeded in concealing his 
personal preference for the American political science or 
his belief that it will prevail in the end. 

Remarkable as George Bryan's work was in this field, 



his most distinguished act was as the first emancipator of 
slaves, by law, in the whole world, by which he freed the 
slaves of Pennsylvania in the abolition act of 1780.^ This 
alone gives him a first place among the statesmen of man- 
kind by the side of Abraham Lincoln ; Lincoln completed 
what Bryan began. 

The present writer gave the most extensive study of 
Bryan then made, in his life of Judge Thomas Smith in 
1904, and then said that such a work as the present one 
ought to be prepared. The conviction grew with the years, 
and he wishes especially to express his appreciation of the 
aid in the actual production of it, by the Honorable Samuel 
Bryan Scott of Philadelphia, long a member of the Penn- 
sylvania House of Representatives and author of a work 
on State Government; Rev. William S. Plumer Bryan, 
D.D., Pastor of the Church of the Covenant (Presbyterian), 
Chicago, 111. ; Dr. George Paull Marquis, Chicago, 111. ; 
George Bryan, Esq., a distinguished lawyer of Rich- 
mond, Va. ; Mr. Samuel S. Bryan. Titusville, Pa. ; Mr. 
George Bryan Logan of Pittsburgh, Pa. ; the late J. P. Ken- 
nedy Bryan, Esq., a distinguished lawyer of Charleston, 
S. C. ; Mr. Thomas S. Bryan, Columbia, S. C. ; Hon. Wil- 
liam F. Bryan, formerly Mayor of Peoria, 111. ; Mr. George 
Bryan and Miss Jane Bryan of the same city; Mr. Wil- 
helmus B. Bryan, Washington, D. C, and Mr. Strickland 
L. Kneass of Philadelphia. Scarcely less helpful have been 
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and several of its 
officers and attendants, notably Miss Jane Wylie. Cour- 
tesies have been received from Mr. Fitzpatrick of the MSS. 
Division of the Library of Congress ; the Rev. Drs. Hill and 
MacColl, pastors of the First and Second Presbyterian 
Churches of Philadelphia ; Mr. Luther E. Hewitt, Librarian, 
and other officers of the Philadelphia Law Association and 
the Association itself ; Secretary Robins of the University 
of Pennsylvania ; CJerk Taylor of The Superior Court, and 
State Librarian Montgomery, as well as others too numerous 
to mention. 

Burton Alva Konkle. 

Swarthmore 

1 February, 1922. 

' The writer does not ignore the case of Vermont, and treats of that else- 
where in this volume. 



CHAPTER I 

The Maker Passes and a Defender is Born 

1731 

On a beautiful spring day in 1731, an April day, the 6th 
thereof, on the green banks of the Delaware river just above 
the mouth of Chester Creek in Pennsylvania, in what was 
then a village, Chester by name, the first capital of Penn's 
colony, and in one of the most beautiful mansions of that 
day in the whole Quaker colony, looking out over the very 
waters where the Welcome had anchored, there passed away 
the most important resident of that colony during the first 
half-century of its existence. The aged figure who had 
seen seventy-five springs come and go since his birth, in 
Cromwellian days, in Wales, was David Lloyd, the father 
of the first permanent colonial constitution of Pennsylvania 
of 1701, by which he gave to that colony the dearly won 
liberties of the revolution of 1688, that the great Founder, 
William Penn, was unable voluntarily to give because of 
the unwillingness of both Crown and Parliament to pass on 
their new liberties to the colonies. Like the products of the 
revolution of which this charter of 1701 was a part, it was 
itself the result of a half-century of struggle, including the 
twenty years of effort to secure it and the thirty years of 
hard fighting to put its principles into the colony's laws and 
keep them there. So when on that April day the aged 
creator of that great instrument, that was to last and grow 
stronger for three-quarters of a century, gave over the 
struggle to a new generation, he doubtless had faith that 
more than one defender of it would arise in the years to 
come. 

And wdien that spring was ripened to mid-summer, 
scarcely four months and five days after the great Quaker 
commoner's passing, there was born on August 11th, prob- 

1 



2 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

ably the most persistent, powerful and faithful of all the 
defenders of that Pennsylvania Magna Charta. And unlike 
its creator, he was born on the Irish side of the Irish Sea, 
a Presbyterian in the Irish Catholic capital of the green isle, 
Dublin, and he was christened at a Calvinistic font as George 
Bryan, the middle child of five children of Samuel and 
Elizabeth Dennis Bryan, the former a well-known merchant 
and importer of the Irish metropolis, who had large deal- 
ings with the colonial capital and metropolis on the Dela- 
ware, Philadelphia. 

But just what was it that so great a man as David Lloyd 
had given his life to create and establish and that George 
Bryan was destined to give his to defend?^ The revolution 
of 1688 in England, that created a limited monarchy, did 
not create a republic by any means; but it was one of the 
greatest advances ever made in the whole history of con- 
stitutional liberty. The year 1688, indeed, was but the crest 
of the wave, begun before Cromwell and extending — 
probably never ending, until Great Britain becomes a clearly 
defined republic. There began then, politically, what has 
more recently been begun industrially, namely, joint con- 
trol; in the former case joint control by the Crown and the 
representatives in Parliament, especially the Commons; and 
in the latter, joint control of industry by capital ana labor, 
in both of which cases the dominant power rests with the 
greater mass of the people : in the former case because of 
the control of the purse and in the latter because of control 
of power. The joint control made constitutional and legal 
agreement necessary, and the supremacy of law: the day 
of arbitrary, unagreed to, action was a thing of the past, 
and the great feature of the movement was the transmuta- 
tion of this principle into institutes and laws applying it to 
all departments of life. This was along and difficult process, 
and, as has been intimated, will never end, probably, until 
Great Britain abandons the principle of joint control, by 
compact, and becomes a clearly defined republic, resting 
sovereignty on the individual alone. 

^ For fuller treatment of it, see David Lloyd and The First Half-Century 
of Pennsylvania, 1656-1731, by Burton Alva Konkle. 



MAKER AND DEFENDER 3 

If this process was long and difficult in Great Britain it 
was far more so in the colonies, and most so in the pro- 
prietary colonies, like Pennsylvania, where the proprietor 
was a Viceroy, with clearly defined royal powers, yet 
limited by both Crown and Parliament, according to the 
theories of that period. But Pennsylvania was, by her 
Stuart charter, a constitutional monarchy, and loose and 
strict construction of that instrument prevailed respectively, 
in the colony and in the mother country, while of necessity 
the latter prevailed in the mind of a Proprietor, who would 
keep his frail hold upon his charter in a period when neither 
Crown nor Parliament desired the preservation of such 
instruments. This situation was peculiarly difficult in Penn- 
sylvania during the first half-dozen years, from 1682 to 
1688, because of Mr. Penn's close relations to the last two 
Stuart Kings, whose despotism gave culmination to the revo- 
lution ; and the next dozen years, to the end of the century, 
were scarcely better, under Parliamentary suspicion of Penn 
as a Jacobite, with an amazing unwillingness to pass on the 
points of the revolution to the people of Pennsylvania, 
farther than their charter plainly granted already. In fact, 
if Mr. Penn's grave financial difficulties, resulting even in 
mortgage of his colony, had not given the people of Penn- 
sylvania the power of the purse, in large measure, it is 
doubtful if David Lloyd could have won the constitution of 
1701 from the necessarily unwilling Proprietor, who sought 
to neutralize its provision and bewailed its existence as long 
as he kept his faculties unimpaired. This unwillingness, it 
must be remembered, was due to his struggle to save the 
charter of his colony from the despotic policy of the Crown 
before 1688, and the actual threats of Parliament to take it 
from him after that date. The result in Pennsylvania was 
an almost continuous state of revolution, of the mild, un- 
military Quaker sort, but none the less effective, for the 
first twenty years of the colony's existence. 

What then was this twenty years' contest designed to 
secure? Nothing essentially different from the aims of the 
revolution in the mother country, namely, control over their 
own laws through the power of the purse — a comparatively 



4 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

simple proposition in England, because there were but two 
parties to it then, the Crown and Parliament. A law was 
offered for approval of the Crown, and appropriation was 
withheld, if it was refused. The process was far more 
complicated in Pennsylvania, for at first, Mr. Penn was 
independent of the purse-power of the Assembly, and the 
passage of a law was hedged about with obstacles that seem 
inconceivable at this late day. Let us see what they were : 
1. If the people desired a law they must get the legislative 
Council, or upper house, which was also the Proprietary 
adviser, to agree to prepare the mieasure and publish it. 2. 
The Assembly, or lower house, was to be called, to meet 
but eight days, with only the right to accept or reject, with- 
out amendment. 3. If it was accepted, then it must secure 
the consent of the Council, which had been persuaded to 
draft it. 4. If Council accepted it, then the consent of the 
Lieutenant-Governor, who represented the Proprietor, must 
be secured. 5. If that was gained, it must still secure the 
Proprietor's acceptance. 6. If that was granted, the con- 
sent of the English Board of Trade, or colonial office, must 
next be obtained. 7. Then it must pass the scrutiny of the 
Crown counsel, which reported to the Board of Trade, and 
8, and finally, it must pass the imperial policy of the Crown 
in Privy Council. Here were eight obstacles to the passage 
of a law by the people of Pennsylvania! It will be seen, 
therefore, how very simple the process in the mother-country 
was, in comparison. 

The object of that twenty years' revolution in Pennsyl- 
vania was merely to reduce those eight obstacles to some- 
thing within the reasonable limits of English colonial liberty. 
From the first almost, the Assembly determined to have full 
powers of a House of Commons, but it had to fight for it 
continuously, Mr. Penn himself insisting that it was "no 
debating society." This fight was begun before Mr. Lloyd 
appeared on the scene in 1686, and the resistance to the 
Council's sole right of preparing laws was a part of it. As 
David Lloyd's power as a leader increased, because, among 
other things, of his resistance of the royal assumption of 
control of the colony in 1694, he led them in securing the 



MAKER AND DEFENDER 5 

more democratic charter, or constitution, of 1696, from 
Penn's Lieutenant-Governor, and, when, in 1699, on the 
Founder's second visit, this constitution was annulled by 
him, the contest for the reduction of legislative obstacles 
was concentrated in a united demand for a new constitu- 
tion under David Lloyd's leadership. Their specifications 
for the new instrument were drastic and uncompromising.^ 
The people's own representatives in the Assembly, or lower 
house, were to propose and prepare and debate their own 
laws on their own adjournments. This removed the first 
two obstacles. The next demand was looked upon as 
revolutionary, namely, the Council, or upper house, was 
absolutely destroyed, thus concentrating all legislative 
power, so far as the people were concerned, in one body 
only, the Assembly. This may be misunderstood, unless it 
is remembered that, as Parliament is composed of Crown, 
Lords and Commons, in its full sense ; so the legislature 
of the colony of Pennsylvania was composed of Crown, 
Board of Trade, Crown Counsel, Proprietor, Lieutenant- 
Governor, Council and Assembly, in actuality. So that the 
removal of the Council was by no means so radical a pro- 
cedure as the removal of the upper house would be in a 
republic. Two legislative houses in a republic furnish the 
organ of self-restraint ; but, when there are seven organs 
of restraint such as then obtained in Pennsylvania, there 
was little need of the solitary one providing self-restraint, 
so one would think today ; and so, indeed, did David Lloyd 
and his party think at that day. Mr. Penn, however, har- 

1 The chief legal part of the struggle, although it was dealt with politically, 
was the objection of Pennsylvania to this illegal, or defective union with the 
section now called Delaware. It is one of the most interesting unique points 
in all colonial history, and has been fully treated in Daz'id Lloyd and the First 
Half-Century, by the present writer. It will be sufficient, for the purposes of 
this narative, to say, that the defective title of the Duke of York, later James 
II, to that territory, vitiated also Mr. Penn's title, so that when, on his arrival 
in 1682, he attempted to combine the two colonies, thoughtful legal minds 
looked upon the operation as vitiating his entire Delaware river project, on the 
west bank, so far as government was concerned. So that separation of the two 
colonies became a chief object oif those leaders with legal knowledge from 1682 
to about 1704 when it was securely effected. The Proprietary element wanted 
them united in order to keep a firmer legal pretension to title to the Delaware 
territory, then known as the "Lower Counties." The Crown never gave up 
its claim to title in that territory, until our revoluiton of 1776 settled it. This, 
however, was only an added perplexity, but was, in its nature, separate from 
the main contention of these years, namely, the right of the Pennsylvanians to 
the liberties of the revolution of 1688, rights which, strange to say, were vir- 
tually contained in the original charter of 1681, so far as the creation of a 
constitutional monarchy in Pennsylvania was concerned. 



6 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

rassed by his financial difficulties and ever threatened with 
the loss of his charter, was far from holding a like opinion, 
and, he was so determined to neutralize this concession that, 
after he had embarked on the river, he created an advisory 
Executive Council, by commission, and so bound them and 
the Lieutenant-Governor together, that the latter would 
have to be a man of great courage and principle to dare act 
contrary to that Council's vote. And this became the fruit- 
ful source of conflict in the years to come. 

Mr, Lloyd, however, had destroyed a constitutional legis- 
lative upper house, and this removed one of the most serious 
of the eight obstacles to the passage of a Pennsylvania law. 
Then came the most important — in some senses — demand 
of all, namely, that the actual Governor only, the Lieutenant- 
Governor who was on the ground, and not the Proprietor, 
whose agent he was, should be a part of the legislature. 
This was not to be secured by the proposed constitution, 
however; because it could be secured by the common law 
of the agent, and David Lloyd was so able a lawyer that 
he had been chosen as Attorney-General for the colony by 
Mr. Penn himself, when he came over in 1686, and he knew 
it could be done. The main object to be gained by this, 
however, was the great principle of English liberty, the con- 
trol of the irresponsible executive by the legislature of the 
people ; in this case, the Lieutenant-Governor to be depend- 
ent for his salary and appropriations on the Assembly, be- 
cause Mr. Penn was now unable to pay his lieutenants' 
salaries, and the temper of the people was warning to him 
not to send over an executive of independent means as he 
soon tried to do in Governor Evans' case. Here, indeed, 
was the back-bone of the great contest for the constitution 
of 1701, and the fight to make it work out was to last for 
nearly thirty years more. In this achievement practically 
two more obstacles were disposed of, actually, but only one, 
theoretically, namely, the Proprietary consent. 

There still remained the Board of Trade, or colonial office 
consent, Crown counsel opinion, and Crown and Privy 
Council policy as obstacles; but these were looked upon as 
legitimate imperial constitutional powers, so long as they 



MAKER AND DEFENDER 7 

did not encroach on the original charter to Mr. Penn and 
the people. There was no incHnation at this time to fight 
these three obstacles, as institutions; although their en- 
croachments were fought valiantly, as in the case of David 
Lloyd's defiance of the Vice-Admiralty Court's assumption 
of control within the bounds of Pennsylvania. And, in- 
deed, they did not hesitate to play tricks on a too provincial 
attitude in the Board of Trade by using a law, without 
publishing it or not reporting it until the time for disallow- 
ance was nearly over and then re-enacting it as a new law ; 
or re-enacting the same law already reported and disallowed 
— under a new title! The result of this adoption of the 
new constitution, or secondary charter, as it was also called, 
in 1701, was to make the legislature of Pennsylvania consist 
of only an irresponsible Lieutenant-Governor, made respon- 
sible by dependence on the power-of-the-purse in the people's 
representatives, and a single-chamber Assembly. As they 
looked upon the combined Crown-Board of Trade-Crown 
Counsel as only an organ of imperial constitutionality test, 
to which they did not object, the result was an essentially 
English constitution, with the obstacles practically reduced 
to two; for as time proceeded, the three-in-one imperial 
organ came to be more carefully and constitutionally re- 
spectful to the royal charter, to Mr. Penn and the people. 
And it may be well to emphasize the point that while the 
territory of Pennsylvania was granted to Mr. Penn alone, 
the government was granted to both him and the people, a 
difference that was a no small source of confusion in this 
early period, not only in the minds of the people, but in that 
of Mr. Penn as well. It will be seen therefore that what 
was technically secured in this great instrument of 1701 
by David Lloyd and his party was as precious a treasure to 
the people of Pennsylvania as Magna Charta was to their 
forefathers, or the revolutionary agreements of 1688 to 
their own generation in England. And this was true even 
at the end of twenty years' struggle to secure it, technically. 
Actually and practically, it was to take i.t least thirty 
more years to make it an establishment, transmuted into in- 
stitutes and laws covering the various departments of 



8 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

colonial life. And this operation was not unlike the very 
same process in England in establishing the principles of the 
revolution of 1688. The constitutional part of the charter 
to Mr. Penn and the people, gave the former a half of the 
legislative power, all of the executive and all of the judiciary, 
except juries. So that the thirty years leadership of David 
Lloyd after 1701, had as its objective as much of a modifi- 
cation of the charter of 1681 as Parliament had in modify- 
ing the English constitution itself. It was not until 1727, 
for example, that the great colonial judiciary foundation of 
1722 was established — an act that is still the foundation of 
jurisprudence in the Keystone state: in other words, it took 
over a quarter of a century to establish in law, what had 
been won in this single department, in 1701 ; and if this one 
thing were all that David Lloyd ever did, it alone should 
win him eternal gratitude and a place in the front rank of 
creators of liberty. The struggle included far more things 
than that, however, for the effort to restore practical legis- 
lative powers to the advisory Council of the executive was 
almost the fiercest struggle of that thirty years and came as 
near to bloodshed as Quakers probably ever came. It was 
fought so tenaciously that it is doubtful if Lloydeans would 
have succeeded had not Mr. Penn's mental failure and final 
death in 1718 thrown the estate into a long litigation which 
gave a much more loose reign to executives and made them' 
wholly dependent on Assembly appropriations. When 
this was finally secured the rest came more easily, so that 
when the great father of the constitution of 1701 died in 
the spring of 1731, that great instrument was looked upon 
as established, in much the same sense as the principles of 
the revolution of 1688 were looked upon as established at 
that time. Not that either one ever afterward could dis- 
pense with defense for an instant, or that the transmutation 
of those principles into statutes and laws has ever ceased. 
This was the situation in the Quaker colony in the sum- 
mer of 1731 when the Dublin boy, George Bryan, was born. 



CHAPTER II 

The Constitution and the Dublin Boy Increase in 

Strength 

1731-1752 

While the Dubhn boy, George Bryan, was growing in 
strength and development, so was the Magna Charta of the 
Quaker colony across the sea, the constitution of 1701 in 
Pennsylvania; and before taking a closer view of the former 
a glance at the latter will be of service. 

The Dublin ships that traded with Philadelphia in 1731 
and heard of the death of their great commoner, David 
Lloyd, also heard how he was succeeded in the Assembly 
by another great lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, as lawyer, and 
a second, a Quaker lawyer, John Kinsey, as public leader — 
two men to take the place of the great commoner, in that 
one body alone. They also might have heard Lieutenant- 
Governor Gordon report how difficult it was to secure a 
third, able to take over still other duties of the father of 
the constitution of 1701, those of Chief Justice of the Su- 
preme Court, and how he finally succeeded in persuading 
the most learned man in the colony, indeed, probably in all 
of the colonies, not a trained lawyer, like either Hamilton 
or Kinsey, but Judge of the Philadelphia courts in which 
the Dublin boy was yet to sit, James Logan, the first and 
ablest leader of the Proprietary party for the past thirty 
years, and the late David Lloyd's chief antagonist. They 
heard also how the project for a State House, voted under 
Lloyd's last speakership, the first, even though Pennsylvania 
was a half-century old, was now being carried out, as if a 
home were needed for the Quaker colony's Magna Charta 
of liberties, which had cost a half-century of struggle, and 
this home was destined to be the birthplace of still greater 

9 



10 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

liberties of a nation. They also heard how James Logan, 
the chief authority on Indian relations, reported the omi- 
nous schemes of the French intrigues with the Five Nations 
and their allies to the westward, which was only a symptom 
of an almost world-wide conflict that was to be one of the 
chief features of the next two or three decades and furnish 
the great unsettling element that was greatly to aid in con- 
solidating the fruits of liberty in all the colonies on the 
American shore. 

The Dublin boy was scarcely two months old, when, on 
October 17, 1731, Governor Gordon announced the re- 
establishment of the fundamental judiciary law of 1722, 
on account of news of royal repeal of a repealinpf law, which 
proved to be the end of the late commoner's decades of 
struggle for a right judicial establishment for Pennsylvania, 
an event which, probably more than any other, had much 
to do with the permanence and development of the consti- 
tution of 1701. Such royal disallowances of laws did not 
always work such happy results as in this case, and both 
Governor and Assembly, during this year, had secured 
Ferdinando J. Paris of London as colonial Agent to attempt 
to make a better presentation of their causes. The chief of 
these causes was the Assembly's efforts to overcome the 
results of the British policy of compelling the colonies to 
trade only with the mother country, which was unable or 
imwilling to absorb all of the colonial products and so kept 
draining Pennsylvania of her coin to pay unfavorable trade 
balances, thereby compelling the colony to use all sorts of 
artificial means to attract coin and, finally, a few years be- 
fore this date, to resort to paper money for the mere cur- 
rency needs within the colony itself, an expedient that 
needed periodical increases in amounts and so aroused 
opposition in London. 

By January 18, 1734, the Assembly was meeting in a 
building on the new square near the operations of building 
the new State House, and during the year Thomas Penn, 
and his brother, John, who had been born in Second Street, 
visited the colony. The death of Governor Gordon in 1736, 
on August 5th, brought Chief Justice Logan to the tern- 



THE CONSTITUTION AND THE BOY U 

porary office of chief executive, or President of the Execu- 
tive Council, and was followed in October by the appoint- 
ment, as Clerk of the Assembly, of the rising young editor 
and publisher, Benjamin Franklin, whose advent in the 
political field was to be of considerable moment to the three- 
year-old boy in Dublin. The old jealousy in the Assembly, 
of any power in the Executive Council, which was now 
covering the interregnum awaiting the appointment of a new 
Governor, flashed up during the winter, the Assembly re- 
fusing to present themselves to the Council since it had 
no power of legislation. Nothing serious happened before 
the arrival of Governor Thomas in 1738, on June 1st, except 
the appointment of Andrew Hamilton as Judge of Ad- 
miralty on August 18th, the previous year. This delay was 
caused by Lord Baltimore's contention that the Penns had 
no right to appoint a Governor over the lower counties, 
now comprising Delaware. Speaker Hamilton, during the 
following winter, however, had occasion to use all his tact 
and Proprietary inclination to quiet the conflict between 
the Assembly, led by Kinsey, and backed by young Franklin, 
over the Penns' unwillingness to receive their quit-rents in 
depreciated paper money. A consideration of this, while 
it led to the Assembly's willingness to make up the loss, 
even though refusing to make a special paper rate to the 
Penns, served to remind the colonists that they, not the 
Penns, were bearing these unfavorable balance burdens. It 
required a splendid farewell address by Speaker Hamilton 
to smooth it over, on August 11, 1739, pointing to a pros- 
perity far beyond all other colonies, which was "almost 
wholly owing to the excellence of our constitution," which, 
as a Proprietarian, he attributed inaccurately to Penn, who 
had signed it under protest and compulsion and who was 
not slow to avow his hatred of it again and again. Added 
to this was the Quaker Assembly's refusal to subscribe for 
imperial defense against Spain and irritation because of the 
drafting of their servants. They finally, in 1740, offer to 
give the Crown $3000, if they are returned. These diffi- 
culties culminated in November 24, 1739, in an elaborate 
report by Chairman Isaac Norris giving a history of the 



12 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

colony's use of paper money and its effect on gold-exchange 
rates. Paper money had become an absolute necessity to 
the colony's existence, as well as prosperity. 

During 1740-41 the Quaker Assembly, dominated by 
Kinsey and influenced by young Franklin, became more and 
more anti-Proprietary, with the departure of Thomas Penn 
and the death of Hamilton during the summer of 1741, and 
they determined to replace the Proprietary counsel as Agent 
in London, with one of their own choice, Richard Patridge, 
who had been agent of some of the northern colonies for 
years. This aggressive attitude left Governor Thomas to 
play a difficult role and he was paid no salary for the next 
two years, because he would not pass their bills expressing 
that purpose, especially in their determination to increase 
the amount of paper money. So that in 1743, on February 
2nd, their quid-pro-quo principle won and the Governor 
yielded. But if Governor Thomas had been fearful about 
Spain he was still more so regarding the naval and military 
aggressiveness of France, so much so that he ofifers to 
waive his own support on May 18, 1744, if they will pre- 
pare for defense. On July 24th, the following year, they 
yielded and granted £4000 for the "King's use," as they 
phrased it, to avoid responsibility for military support. Al- 
though John Kinsey, the Quaker lawyer and leader, was 
both Speaker and Chief Justice at this time, the fructify- 
ing suggestiveness of young Editor Franklin, as Clerk of 
the Assembly, was much in evidence. During that autunm 
Speaker Kinsey was in Albany taking part in the negotia- 
tions for the Indian treaty but the military situation was so 
ominous in February, 1746, that Governor Thomas, on re- 
ceiving a plea for action from Governor Clinton of New 
York, suggested a union of the colonies to the Assembly on 
the 3rd, to which they expressed willingness, if other 
colonies were likewise inclined. The gravity of the situa- 
tion was so much greater by June, that an £80,000 paper- 
money act was proposed by the Assembly, the greatest yet 
proposed, with the provision for another grant of £5000 
for "the King's use." To this the Governor countered with 
a proposal that, as the colony had not paid a provincial tax 



THE CONSTITUTION AND THE BOY 13 

for above twenty years, he would agree if they would pro- 
vide for a sinking of old issues, for any new issues above 
£5000, and to this the Assembly agreed. With this war- 
tax agreement, as will presently appear, grounds were found 
for a more serious anti-Proprietary conflict than had oc- 
curred since the great fight under Governor Sir William 
Keith, and was to end only with independence. 

By May 29, 1747, the administration of Governor 
Thomas had come to a close because of ill-health, and the 
Assembly, under Quaker leadership, broadened by young 
Editor Franklin's influence, felt that it had done well enough 
in voting £6213 to the "King's use,' in the past two years, 
and permitting the counties to form militia companies 
known as "Associators." About a year's interregnum of 
Executive Council followed until the peace of Aix-la- 
Chapelle of 7th October, 1748, when a new kind of Gover- 
nor, a colonial product, was secured. This was none other 
than the son of the late Judge of Admiralty and colonial 
leader, Andrew Hamilton (who had become famous in 1735 
for his defense of the freedom of the press in the Zenger 
trial at New York), namely, James Hamilton. Like his 
father, young Hamilton was sufficiently symlpathetic to the 
Proprietary to have won their confidence, but also, as a 
citizen of Pennsylvania, broadly appreciative of the colonial 
political standards, and respectful of the Assembly's posi- 
tion as a House of Commons ; for he had been chosen to 
that body in 1734, when but about twenty- four years old 
and was five times re-elected ; served as Mayor in 1745, 
Councillor in 1746, and had recently been visiting in Lon- 
don, when the Penns selected him for his new post, and he 
arrived on November 23, 1748. 

The advent of Governor Hamilton signified the arrival of 
a new generation to take the helm, who were native born 
and settled in the political ideals of the constitution of 1701. 
James Logan was past his usefulness, his death occurring 
about two years later ; while the passing of Speaker Kinsey 
occurred only about six months before that of the great 
Quaker scholar, and brought young Editor Franklin not 
only to membership in the Assembly, but to actual leader- 



14 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

ship of it, and that too of a most vigorous sort, beginning 
August 13, 1751. Not only so, but he made his son, William, 
his successor, as Clerk of the Assembly. Scarcely more 
than a week passed, when, on the 21st, the new leader pro- 
posed that the Proprietary pay a part of the cost of Indian 
presents, which were so large a part of the cost of Indian 
treaties ; and he backed up his proposal the following day 
in a history of Indian treaties that showed that the As- 
sembly had often given gifts but refused to pay more than 
half the cost. Probably this comparatively insignificant 
incident was the rill that was destined to increase into a 
flood which was to soon threaten the levee of Proprietary 
refusal to share the financial burdens of the colony. Editor 
Franklin was now a man of forty-five years, nearly twenty- 
eight of which had been spent in this metropolis of the 
American shore, Philadelphia. Coming as a boy of seven- 
teen, he had really served a long apprenticeship as a citizen 
before assuming political leadership. Indeed, while he had 
avoided this particular kind of leadership, he had long since 
become a powerful leader in the intellectual life of Phila- 
delphia, in the creation of institutions of various kinds de- 
voted to public progress; hardly a feature of life in the city 
but received the impetus of his genius, from the common 
stove to the identification of the familiar lightning as elec- 
tricity which, by the way, occurred at about this time. As 
postmaster at the western metropolis for the past fifteen 
years, he became the father of the continental postal service. 
Indeed, he looked at everything in its universal aspects — 
"hitched" every "wagon to a star." So that when he had 
been public printer for the Assembly for many years and 
then Clerk for the past fifteen years, it was perfectly natural 
for him to find some universal aspect of government in 
Pennsylvania that had large possibilities of progress and 
development in it, as it would no doubt be as structurally 
radical as were his ideas in other fields. Among the first 
of these was the discovery that the Proprietary did not 
share justly in the burdens of the province and furthermore, 
did not intend to do so. And, as his little unostentatious 
kite-flying experiment at Ninth and Chestnut Streets had in 



THE CONSTITUTION AND THE BOY 15 

it vast possibilities which, within two years, were to place 
his name among the immortals of the old world, so this 
simple observation of Proprietary injustice was to carry 
him and the colony into world-wide relations of vast mo- 
ment to both. 

There is no evidence, however, that Editor Franklin had 
any special reverence for the constitution of 1701. He 
accepted it, to be sure, but his "wagon" was "hitched to a 
star" ; and constitutions and political science were not im 
his purview overmuch : he was a great seed-sower rather 
than an architect and builder; and was much more inter- 
ested in the spirit of freedom than in a corporeal form in 
which it might live. He was a native American and was 
born in the most radical part of the continent and grew up 
in the spirit of resistance even to the conservative radicalism 
of his native colony. Indeed it was because he had to fly 
from that colony as too radical for it, that he was now a 
citizen of the Quaker province. He undoubtedly had inti- 
mations of independence as the ultimate destiny of the 
colonies even in those early days, and also had a conse- 
quent comparative indifference to the political institutions 
as they then existed. His fructifying mind roamed abroad 
in all fields, so that the political was only one field, and that 
the latest one to attract his attention. 

This was an entirely different attitude from that held by 
the old liberal leaders, who had fought so long both to 
secure the constitution of 1701 and to carry its principles 
into every department of Pennsylvania's political life. It 
is entirely probable also that because Editor Franklin knew 
this so well and knew that the people cherished those tradi- 
tions, he was respectful to it and slow to enter the political 
field even with the men of his generation. It was as though 
he expected long life and expected more congenial ideas in 
a coming younger generation. He found thorough sym- 
pathy in his proposals to compel the Penns to bear their 
share of the new burdens, and in doing so uncovered in 
their true light the British commercial exploitation of the 
colonies during his first year in the Assembly. The con- 
tinual draining off of provincial coin by the unfavorable 



16 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

balance of trade made a constant stringency in currency 
that made new paper issues an absolute necessity, and 
Editor Franklin was made chairman of a committee to 
canvas the whole subject and report, which latter was done 
on August 20, 1752, and it produced much serious thought 
during that month. 

He showed that the first paper issues, in 1723, had saved 
the colony, and turned the tide of decay, illustrated by 
vessel clearances from Philadelphia in 1721 at 130, 1722 at 
110 and 1723 at only 85, when £15,000 were issued; that 
the results were so apparent that £30,000 more were struck 
the same year; that in 1729, £30,000 more were ordered; 
and ten years later £5000, while in 1746, when £5000 more 
were issued, the total struck by the province was but £80,- 
000, and none has been issued since; that in 1756 — four 
years from now — this was ordered sunk at the rate of one- 
sixth a year, and new issues must now be provided. He 
showed that great progress had been made in the colony in 
various ways : that Philadelphia had grown from 1995 tax- 
ables in 1720 to 4850 in 1740 and in 1751 — the previous 
year, 7100; that Bucks county had made probably as good 
a showing; that Qiester, with 2157 in 1732, rose to 3007 
in '42 and in the present year, 1752, came up to 3951 ; that 
Lancaster in 1738 had 2560 taxables, and even with two 
counties carved out of it now had 3977 ; that York with 
1466 in 1749, in 1751 had 2043; that Cumberland, which 
had but 807 in 1749. had 1134 in 1751. Trade had shown 
like advance: from the vessel clearances of only 85 in 1723. 
they rose to 171 in 1730. 212 five years later, and now 
average about 403 per annum. London importers in 1723 
sent but two vessels, with manufactured products, but from 
those alone they now average nine a year ; and in value, 
not counting Irish and Scotch linens, English imports which 
reached in 1723 but about £15.992, rose in 1730 to about 
£48,592, in '37 to £56,690, in '42 to £75,295, and in '47 the 
latest statistics, £82,404. The happy manner of issuing the 
paper as loans to individuals of from £12 — 10 to £100, on 
easy interest, undoubtedly led largely to the great influx 
from Ireland and Germany, as it enabled them to become 





MAPS OF PENNSYLVANIA SHO) 

I 

Prepared by the ^ 





COUNTIES ORGANIZED BY 1752 



1 original sources 



THE CONSTITUTION AND THE BOY 17 

land holders ; while the re-issue of paid loans to new appli- 
cants had heretofore made new issues unnecessary ; but 
now applicants to the number of 1000 have to be refused 
for lack of issues. He closes by appealing to the cupidity 
of Great Britain that labor will continue to be dear in 
America so long as land can easily be bought between the 
Atlantic and Pacific, and so she cannot rival England in 
manufactures. 

At the time of this consideration, in August, 1752, at 
the new Province House at Sixth and Chestnut Streets, 
where they were now buying the whole square and ordering 
a clock for the new tower, a young Irish merchant was just 
getting settled in partnership near the Market Street wharf, 
who was destined to become a leader of the people who 
particularly prized the old provincial constitution or charter 
of 1701 and to challenge Editor Franklin and some of his 
political ideas. This was the Dublin boy, George Bryan, 
now just of age during this very month, and come to Amer- 
ica to seek his fortune. Twenty-one years of age, he had 
been born in Dublin, as has been said, on August 11, 1731, 
the very year of the passing of David Lloyd, in Pennsyl- 
vania, and attention may now be turned from that colony 
in America back to the western shore of the Irish Sea and 
the capital and metropolis of the "Green Isle," which had 
always been the headquarters of the English colony in that 
distracted land. 

The picturesque city of "The Black Pool," as the name 
Dublin signifies, at the head of the bay of the same name, 
and sitting astride the Liffey river, and flanked to the 
southward by the beautiful background of the Wicklow 
Mountains, had about 115,000 people in 1731 when George 
Bryan was born there on the north side of the river, prob- 
ably in Henry Street, at whose junction with Earl Street 
rises the lofty Doric pillar surmounted by a statue of Nel- 
son ; at any rate Henry Street was the family home later 
on. He was doubtless familiar with Phoenix Park up the 
river westward and with Trinity College, later Dublin Uni- 
versity, and the Irish parliament which the country had at 
that time, but which was no more representative of the 



18 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

people than was the British parliament of its own people. 
He was equally familiar with the long exploitation of Ire- 
land, beginning with Charles I's discouragement of woolen 
manufactures and an attempt to encourage their exclusive 
devotion to linen manufacture, so that Irish industry was 
characterized by a steady decadence during the whole period 
of his minority. The Irish parliament furnished great 
names that were the household words of his youth, and it 
was the age of Bishop Berkeley and Dean Swift. 

His father, Samuel Bryan — for no earlier family records 
have been discovered — was a Dublin merchant, importer 
and exporter of good standing and means, whose wife was 
a Miss Sarah Dennis, whose brother had moved to America 
and located in Philadelphia. They had two daughters, 
Elizabeth and Nancy, when their first son, George Bryan 
was born in 1731, the first of three sons, the younger ones 
being Arthur and Samuel. The family were Irish Presby- 
terians and most devoted to their church, as had been most 
of their "ancient and very respectable family," to use the 
words of a friend of the son of many years later.^ Like 
Presbyterians everywhere they believed in education, and 
the family letters indicate that they had a good degree of 
it, but just what was its character and where received is 
not known. George Bryan, their eldest son, however, was 
an independent student of much native ability and all his 
life a most omnivorous reader. It is not improbable that 
some of it was received in the parish schools of his church. 
His father was very ambitious for him and as the young 
man approached his majority decided to set him up in busi- 
ness as a merchant importer and exporter and correspon- 
dent or factor in the American metropolis, Philadelphia, 
where his brother-in-law, Mr. Dennis, was settled. In can- 
vassing the possibilities there, he was no doubt informed, that 
in the Pennsylvania Gazette of October 31, 1751, a Phila- 
delphia merchant, James Wallace, who was a merchant of 
that kind with close connections in Dublin, was getting set- 
tled and had removed his store from opposite the Queen's 

* Dunlap's American Advertiser, 31st Jan., 1791, in a sketch of George 
Bryan. The records of the Dublin Presbyterian Churches are soi defective at 
this period as to furnish no details. 



THE CONSTITUTION AND THE BOY 19 

Head in Water (the river front) Street to near Chestnut 
Street on the same thoroughfare, and had just received a 
fine shipment of Irish Hnens from DubUn by the ship Sally, 
of which he is agent, as he is also of the Lenox and Friend- 
ship, which latter is soon to be bound for Dublin.^ By- 
February 4, 1752, Mr. Wallace had found a still better site 
on the same street near Market Street, and he requests settle- 
ment as he expects to leave the province "on one of the 
first vessels in the spring." There is every probability that 
this meant a trip to Dublin, for during that spring he made 
a deal with either George Bryan or his father to become a 
partner, and George arrived with him. For young Bryan, 
who would not be of age until the following August 11th, 
was in Philadelphia at least before the brig Jenny, Capt. 
Alex. Magee, cleared for Dublin on July 2nd, as he sent a 
letter by that ship to his father on that date.^ 

The new firm of Wallace and Bryan made their first 
announcement in the Gacette on August 6th, just five days 
before young Bryan's twenty-first birthday as follows: 
"Just arrived at Newcastle [in what is now Delaware] from 
Ireland, the ship Sarah and Rebecca, Peter Eaton, Com- 
mander, in which there are a parcel of likely men and 
women servants, among whom tradesmen of different sorts, 
whose times are to be disposed of by Wallace and Bryan, 
merchants in Philadelphia." Thus was this young man 
launched in business as a merchant importer and exporter, 
factor and agent of Dublin houses, among them his father's, 
at the very summer period in which Editor and Assembly- 
man Franklin had presented the Assembly's statistics show- 
ing why Governor Hamilton should sign a bill emitting a 
new issue of paper money of £20,000. 

By the Crazvford, on August 6th, the young merchant 
wrote his father, Samuel, a hasty letter, which did not please 

^ James Wallace had been in business as early as 1748, was in Water 
Street "opposite Fishboumej's Wharf" in 1749, in VV'ater Street near Chestnut 
in 1750, and in 1751 announces a stock received on a vessel from Dublin, 
Captain William Wallace. 

^ The Crawford, Capt. Nat. Stokes, from Dublin, entered Philadelphia on 
11th June, and announced itself outward bound on July 2nd, while on June 18th 
the Betty and Sally, Capt. Snead, cleared for Dublin and on the 25th the Sally, 
Capt John Giddings, cleared for the same place. These are all the advertised 
sailings for Dublin at this period. 



20 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

the elder Bryan, who promptly despatched an answer by the 
next boat, the Sarah, Capt. Correy, which sailed on the date 
the letter was written, September 23rd. "Dear George: — " 
he writes, "I received yours of 6 August last, but so short 
a one does not please me. I am sure you knew of the 
Craivford's sailing some days before she came out, and you, 
by that, had no right to plead your being in a hurry, and 
these are idle excuses, and letters writ in a hurry are never 
well done. I expected a list of occurrences since yours by 
the Jenny, and how the present crops have proved in corn 
and flaxseed, very proper to be taken notice of at the time 
of your writing. I am informed your evenings are taken 
up in boating on the river, and down to Mr. Bleakly 
[who had leased Province Island]. This can in no way 
improve you as a man coming into life. I have commended 
you to the best of company to keep, men in business, men 
of conversation and good manners, that when I meet you 
again I may not meet with the Rustic or Tar, but the genteel, 
pretty agreeable fellow as well as the competent merchant, 
and this will never be the case if you proceed in your present 
course, for you take the readiest method to lock yourself 
from what I have been recommending to you to do. Mr. 
Bleakly is an honest man, but he is not a man of all men I 
should choose for my companion ; he never saw anything 
in his young days that could polish his person and manners, 
and I am afraid he has not improved either by going to 
Philadelphia. I gave you a long letter before, recommend- 
ing your going into all companies where men of manners, 
sense, etc., were to be found — the expense I valued not — 
and those as good or better than yourself. Low, mean 
company are a scandal and a disgrace, and nothing can so ef- 
fectually lessen you in the opinion of mankind. The amuse- 
ment of dancing, fencing, the use of the small sword, taking 
a glass of wine or ])unch with a few of such as I am recom- 
mending at particular evenings, — this would, after business 
is over, be showing yourself to mankind to be known and 
regarded. Away with boating and let me never hear more 
of such a thing, unless on business or on a party of pleasure 
with good company." 



A LI pc-fons in<}ebtKi) to J A M Bs W a l 1. A c«, or to Wall a c E 
anilBtTAN, -re d'firtci to rr, kc ji-'iniedufe p^ymrnf : AnJ 
t.ofe th»t fc-ve an? deni -nds <K»if.lt theni, ire (Je(irfd t> bring in 
their sccountt, that they nuy I'S P''!'', as fiii.es WiUace i.-usrjds 
to ie3»e t .• proTince by the lo-h oi Sfi.Hfri.ber next. 



The First Advertisement 
of Wallace & Bryan, Importers, in 

The Pfiiiisvlx'ania Cuv-ettc 



THE CONSTITUTIOxN Ax\D THE BOY 21 

"Let not the carelessness of the world about you," he 
continues, "with respect to God and rehgion have any effect 
on you, for if once you can lose sight of this, you will be 
an easy prey to every vice which offers. I conjure you to 
take my advice and directions, if you value and regard me 
as your tender, affectionate father, watchful of your happi- 
ness, willing and wishing you to be good and happy. Could 
you but conceive my joy in attaining those happy ends, you 
would not stop in your pursuit till they were made your 
own. I am doing everything in my power to advance you 
in the world and establish you as my son. Do not defeat 
it in any one instance, but resolve and I am sure you have 
resolution enough to surmount anything 1 can find fault 
with. For news, little is going; nothing new in my family, 
or among your friends — who are well ; your uncle and aunt 
and cousins Jenny and Matty are all well and join in love 
to you. Your mother joins me in hearty prayers to God 
for your health and prosperity here, and happiness to all 
eternity. I am your tender, affectionate and watchful 
father, Samuel Bryan."^ 

This letter of course voices a father's warnings and 
ambitions, not any serious defects in the son ; indeed as- 
sumes a very I igh character, which this young Irish mer- 
chant was to abundantly prove in the coming years, and 
that, too, not only in his private capacity but in the larger 
field of public duties and love for his adopted land, in 
which, just at present Editor Franklin was so effective a 
leader. 

^ Letter in fKjssession of Hon. Wm. F. Bryan, Peoria, IlL A postscript 
to it ia curious: "Do not omit to send your mother 2 or 3 kegs of cranberries, 
and some pickles, both peaches and cucumbers, as well as other pickles that 
are green and pretty. Send no more sturgeon; it is very bad; what you sent is 
so full of salt and spice it is not worth a penny. Send us some hickory 
sticks to make yards, and if you know a ship of yours or ours is coming here, 
I wish you would send us one of your best Cads, [a hoirse ?] one that is 
sure-footed, goes well, fast and not rough and not old; perhaps such may be 
picked up some time before, that it might please; for a thing of that kind 
could not be got to satisfaction if bought when the ship is going; but takes 
time and opportunity. We wrote about wax or spermaceta candles — the wetness 
of the season has spoiled all our bees, and wax next winter may be very dear; 
so do not omit our order and let some candles be 2, 3, 4, and 5 to the pound — 
some 6 to a pound, but very few." 



CHAPTER III 

The Philadelphia Importer Sees Editor Franklin's 
Republican Tendencies 

1752 

In choosing Philadelphia as a location and the business 
of a merchant importer and factor as an occupation, the 
Bryans, father and son, were either fortunate or far-sighted 
or both ; for it soon became evident that Philadelphia was 
out-stripping Boston as the former commercial metropolis, 
destined to have a population of nearly nineteen thousand 
before the close of this decade ; while the occupation of 
merchant in all the middle and northern colonies was the 
dominant one, together with their lawyer retainers, so that 
young Br}^an was on the high road to a share in leadership 
of this province of Pennsylvania, if his personal abilities 
equalled his opportunities. 

Among the better known merchants of that year were 
William Wallace, Thomas White, Joseph Saunders, Mor- 
decai Yarnall, Joseph Redmond, John Bell, Isaac Jones, 
Benjamin Rawle, Levy & Franks, Alexander Hamilton, 
Parker & Garrett, Robert Moore, William Moore, Joshua 
Fisher, the Strettell Brothers, Thomas Wharton, Thomas 
Preston, Edward Pennington, Isaac Greenleaf, William 
Grant and others, some of whom advertised most of the 
time and some only as occasion arose, as in the arrival of a 
new cargo. Wallace and Bryan's second announcement, on 
August 20, 1752, asked settlement because the senior part- 
ner wanted to go away in September. Twice in December 
their notice appeared in the Gazette and then nothing more 
until April 19, 1753. During the next month Mr. Bryan 
was out on a business trip for the firm, a partial diary of 
which has been preserved. It is dated 16th May, 1753 : "The 
country adjoining is pleasant and clear of woods. Next 

22 



THE IMPORTER AND THE EDITOR 23 

morning, leaving Amboy three miles to the southward, I 
proceeded to Brunswick, a pleasant town, situated on the 
southwest bank of Raritan river. It consists of one long 
street lying parallel to the river. The tide rises high enough 
to bring up small sloops, which carry away all their ex- 
ports to New York. In three hours I reached Cranberry 
and slept at Allentown, a poor straggling place. Having 
business at Mount Holly [New Jersey] I crossed the coun- 
try and by difficult roads got thither by noon. This is a 
considerable country town mostly inhabited by Quakers ; 
here is an ironworks. A navigable branch of Ancocus 
passes through the town and brings up large boats. The 
adjoining country is generally sandy and barren, the timber 
pine. In three hours I reached the Delaware and had Phila- 
delphia in full prospect on the opposite shore. Next day I 
set ofif westward for Carlisle."^ 

His firm advertised in May, once in July, in August and 
in September, but frequently in October, in one of which 
they are mentioned as headquarters of the Captain of a 
Dublin bound ship. 

They advertised more fully in 1754 and on October 
10th, they announce the prospective closing of their part- 
nership, a statement continued until February 4, 1755, when 
final dissolution is announced, followed on March 4th, by 
George Bryan's public notice of succession to the partner- 
ship and a new store location on Front Street between Mar- 
ket and Arch, in the former dwelling of Mr. Conyngham.^ 
Thereafter Mr, Bryan was in business alone, and on Febru- 
ary 26, 1756, had his store at the northeast corner of Water 
and Market Streets, and advertised occasionally the receipt 
of cargoes from Dublin, mostly dry-goods, but, like all those 
importing houses at that date, had a variety even greater 

^ It seems that Mr. Bryan at this date made himself, according to the 
custom of the day, a pocket memorandum book or diary by folding sheets of 
paper and cutting and stitching them; that, like many another before and since, 
who attempted a diary, he wrote in it in 1753, then some in 1758 and then, 
in 1760, securing a Dublin pocket almanac, containing a large amount of 
valuable reference matter, somewhat after the manner of the famous alminacs 
issued by great metropolitan dailies, he fastened his almost blank diary in the 
back — and made no use of it, apparently, until he became a public man in 1764. 
The above extract is from that almanac diary, which, in the course of time has 
found its way to the Congressional Library at Waahington, and is now in the 
Manuscript Division. 

" James and Thomas Wallace, however, opened a new firm at the old site. 



24 BRYAN AXD PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

than the department store of our own day. It v»?as during 
this year, on 5th July, on the issue of new paper money, he 
was one of twenty-eight leading citizens who offered, if 
appointed to sign these bills, to give their pay to the Penn- 
sylvania Hospital, his name following that of Joseph Gallo- 
way, the distinguished lawyer, and preceding a scarcely less 
distinguished citizen, Charles Thomson. This was the first 
appearance of his name in the Assembly minutes.^ In 1757 
his place is described as on the "upper side" of Front street, 
between Market and Mulberry Streets and by October 
13th, a location "exactly opposite," on Front Street on the 
"Bank," i. e., east side of Front Street. After this he ad- 
vertises very little — scarcely once a year, none in 1758, twice 
in 1759, then none until June 23, 1763, when "George 
Bryan's Store" is described as on Front Street between 
Market and Arch Streets, three times. 

A letter of the previous year from Mr. Wm. Gilleland, 
New York, to Mr. Bryan, 1st March, 1762, shows the latter 
to be engaged in all the phases of a big importer, factor and 
agent, including vessel insurance. It was during 1763, on 
September 27th, that Andrew Elliot, Charles Coxe and him- 
self, merchants, petitioned the Assembly to release Samuel 
Wallis from the debtors' prison, where he is incarcerated 
at the instance of John Moore, provided it do not affect 
their own case against Mr. Moore. This was the second 
appearance of his name in Assembly proceedings, where it 
was destined soon to appear more than that of anyone else. 

It was about midway in this decade, as a prominent mer- 
chant, importer and wholesaler to the back country, that 
Mr. Bryan was married. In order to understand this rela- 
tion fully, it is necessary to glance at the religious features 
of Philadelphia at this period. Few people realize the tre- 
mendous results of the evangelistic work of Wesley and 
Whitefield in the middle of the eighteenth century, and 
especially the latter. It was true of the whole country, but 
as the concern here is only with what happened in Phila- 
delphia, it may be noted that Whitefield's audiences in 1740 

^ Mr. Bryan was one of those persons chosen and nained in this act of 
Sept 21, 1756, to sign the notes, as he was also in the act of April 22, 1758. 



THE IMPORTER AND THE EDITOR 25 

and thereabouts in the Quaker City were from 12,000 to 
15,000, as a regular thing, and that at this time no building 
there could accommodate them and the leading men, Editor 
Franklin among them, built a new one at the southwest 
corner of Fourth and Arch Streets. The great evangelist 
was an Oxford man, and like the Wesleys, of the Church 
of England, but as the broad ideas of the Wesleys broke 
forth into a new religious body, so Whitefield came to be 
practically a Presbyterian of a broad kind, at that time 
dubbed "New Lights," as a secondary name. The result 
was that those of the old First Presbyterian Qiurch and of 
all other bodies and of no denomination at all, who fol- 
lowed the great preacher at the new building at Fourth 
and Arch Streets, were formed into a new body in Decem^ 
ber, 1743, which took the name Second Presbyterian Church 
and used the new building as a church for several years. 
They chose as their pastor an American young man, who 
had astonished Whitefield in becoming a disciple who almost 
rivalled his master, Gilbert Tennant. They chose trustees, 
first among whom, as named in their charter, Samuel Smith, 
who was also a leading merchant, and among those who 
greeted Governor John Penn in November, 1763. The 
"new building," was bought in 1749 by Editor Franklin and 
others for a new academy, and it became necessary for the 
Second Church to build, as they did do, at the northwest 
corner of Third and Arch Streets, the following year a 
structure that rivalled in its proportions, even to a tower, the 
proud fane of Christ Church ; a wag chronicler, indeed, 
averred that the Episcopalians said : 

"The Presbyterians built a church, 
And fain would build a steeple ; 
We think it may become the church, 
But not become the people." 

— a sentiment that no doubt expressed a quite human re- 
sentment at the appearance of a vigorous new body of men 
in all departments of the city's life. The records of the 
period are not very helpful, but the famous preacher. Rev. 
Gilbert Tennant, was pastor of this new church at Third 
and Arch Streets, in 1752, when young George Bryan be- 



26 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

came a Philadelphia merchant and importer and he doubt- 
less became a member of it, and during the next five years 
fell in love with Miss Elizabeth, the daughter of Trustee 
Samuel Smith and his wife, IMary, born on February 4, 
1732, and so was but about a year younger than Mr. Bryan. 
Pastor Gilbert Tennant married them on April 21, 1757, 
when Mr. Bryan was nearly twenty-six years old, and dur- 
ing this decade, up to and including 1764, when Pastor 
Tennant died, four children were born to them : Sarah, 
named for his mother and born on March 10, 1758; Samuel, 
no doubt named for both grandfathers, whose birth occurred 
on September 30, 1759; Arthur, born on September 1, 1761 ; 
and Francis, whose birth came on February 6th, 1764.^ It 
will be remembered, also, that his home and store were but 
two squares away from his church on Front Street near 
Arch. He was therefore identified with the vigorous aggres- 
sive body of the followers of Whitefield and Tennant, and 
had followed his father's advice. 

Mr. Bryan's private life was also characterized by vigor- 
ous and habitual student habits during these years. He 
was an omnivorous reader and the necessities of a trade 
position like his, making a certain general knowledge of law 
necessary, led him to an industrious study of the law, this 
period as well as a later one being peculiarly prolific in 
general works on law, because, in the colonies, members 
of the legal profession were not numerous and judicial and 
semi-judicial positions were quite generally held by men 
not professionally trained in the law. The study of law 
was a necessary part of the private study of every public 
man, or prominent man, who was always liable to become 
a public one. It was a period when prominent men in all 
walks of life, and especially the big merchants, were the 
natural occupants of the bench, even to the Supreme Court 

^ The church records afford no mention of these births, but they are in a 
leaf from George Bryan's family Bible, the leaf being in possession of Mr. 
Strickland Knenss, Philadelphia. The record of the marriage, on this leaf, 
gives the mother's birth on February 4th, plainly, but the year is undecipherable. 
The burial records of the Second Church, however, give her age as sixty-seven 
at her death on January 5, 1799, and as 1732 would make her within but one 
month of exactly that age, it is wholly probable that so small a margin would 
be ignored in a general statement. The imperfect records of the Second Church 
do not mention Mr. Bryan's membership of it, though it is now well known 
from several other general sources. 



THE IMPORTER AND THE EDITOR 27 

of the province. These were the kind of men who occupied 
the metropoHtan bench and that of the provincial Supreme 
Court at this very time. For example, take the Supreme 
Court of Pennsylvania during these very years: The Chief 
Justice was William Allen, the very richest merchant in 
the entire colony, a son-in-law of the distinguished lawyer, 
Andrew Hamilton, to be sure, but a student of law only in 
the same sense that Mr. Bryan himself was. The same 
thing was true of his Associate Justices, like Lawrence 
Growdon, who was a Bucks county country gentleman, 
brother-in-law of the late Chief Justice David Lloyd, and 
father-in-law of the distinguished lawyer, Joseph Galloway; 
or like Caleb Cowpland who was merely a prominent Quaker 
of Chester; or William Coleman, whom Franklin described 
as "a. merchant of great note," in Philadelphia also, before 
the close of this decade. 

So while Mr. Bryan is winning a high place in the com- 
munity of the metropolis of the American colonies, it will 
be well to observe how events were preparing for his entry 
into public life in that provincial capital. His advent in the 
place in 1752, when Editor Franklin was leading the As- 
sembly in a fight for more paper money, sounding with his 
plummet the great question of unfavorable trade balance 
and the Proprietary's avoidance of bearing a just share of 
the colony's expenses, introduced young Bryan to pretty 
vigorous colonial politics. To overcome the opposition of 
government and Proprietary in London, Editor Franklin 
was made chairman of a committee of correspondence with 
the Assembly's London agent, Richard Patridge, on October 
14, 1752. It was high time, too, for, when, in September 
of the following year, they were pushing their £20,000 
paper bill against Governor Hamilton's resistance, they were 
confronted with his additional instructions on that point 
from the Lords Justice, but they met this with provision for 
an assistant agent, in Robert Charles, so that the two agents 
were instilled with the vigor of Editor Franklin's commit- 
tee, and the knowledge that there was a dead-lock between 
Governor Hamilton and the Assembly. By the following 
February 6, 1754, the Assembly showed the Executive how 



28 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

importations had increased — £15,992 of 1723; £48,592 of 
1730, and similar increase until it was £190,917 in 1751, 
when they had no more paper than in 1730; and that ex- 
ports of four main commodities, then about £60,000 in value 
per annum, was in 1751 £187,457, nearly three times as 
much. With these figures they propose £40,000 new paper 
and enter on a fight to a finish with Governor Hamilton all 
that year, until the unusually well-balanced and generally 
liberal Executive on March 2nd throws down the gauntlet 
reminding them that he is "not responsible to" them, while 
on May 15th, with a £30,000 bill as the limit of concession 
they deliver to him their ultimatum, which brings out the 
Executive retort that he is half of the legislature! They 
likewise retort — "not in raising money!" So that it was 
not surprising to hear Governor Hamilton announce on 
August 16th, that he was to be succeeded by a new Execu- 
tive ! The chief reason for this was that Governor Hamil- 
ton had been bonded by the Crown, before approving him, 
for £2000, that he would not pass such a bill except it were 
subject to approval by the Crown, a proceeding which the 
Assembly regarded as infringing on their liberties. 

Before Governor Hamilton's resignation, however, he 
had joined the Assembly in taking part in an event which 
is very significant to this narrative. The war with the French 
and certain Indian allies led the Board of Trade to propose 
a convention of the colonies at Albany for the purpose of 
making friendly treaties with the Indians and also to at- 
tempt to formulate some plan of union for purposes of de- 
fense. On June 2nd Governor Hamilton wrote the New 
York executive that he was sending Messrs. Penn and 
Peters of his Council and Speaker Norris and Leader 
Franklin of the Assembly, but he is not hopeful of what 
they may do; and he "can see nothing to prevent this very 
fine province, owing to the absurdity of its constitution and 
the principles of the governing parts of its inhabitants, from 
being an easy prey to the attempts of the common enemy." 
It was quite evident the measures of the aggressive Editor 
Franklin were so republican as to make the otherwise liberal 
Hamilton turn Proprietary with a vengeance. The experi- 



THE IMPORTER AND THE EDITOR 29 

ence that made him especially irritated just now was that a 
recent bill for £10,0(X) "for the King's use," had so many 
"little jokers" in it — to use a modern term, and was so 
"calculated to render them independent of the Governor 
for a long term of time," that he had to veto it, and so had 
no money to offer for his colony. He even suggests that 
Parliament ought to make them furnish quotas "independent 
of the Assemblies." They met at Albany on the 19th of 
June and all colonies above New Jersey, Delaware and 
Virginia were present. On the 24th a committee was ap- 
pointed, embracing Hutchinson of Massachusetts, Atkinson 
of New Hampshire, Pitkin of Connectitcut, Hopkins of 
Rhode Island, Franklin of Pennsylvania, Tasker of Mary- 
land and Smith of New York, to prepare a plan of union, 
as the Board of Trade had suggested. Editor Franklin had 
offered a form at the Albany Court House meeting, which, 
on July 10th, was reported out in a modified form designed 
to include all the colonies from New Hampshire to South 
Carolina. This union was to be created by an act of Parlia- 
ment, providing a royal President-General independent of 
the colonies, but a congress of colonial delegates, called the 
Grand Council, chosen by the Assemblies. The propor- 
tionate representation is interesting: Massachusetts Bay 
and Virginia were to have the largest, 7 ; Pennsylvania was 
the only one to have 6 ; Connecticut the only one to have 5 ; 
while 4 were assigned each to New York, Maryland, and 
each of the Carolinas ; New Jersey being the only one to 
have 3, with 2 each to the rest — New Hampshire and Rhode 
Island, a total of 48, a number that could only be increased 
by those colonies, having less than 7, growing in wealth and 
population to equal Virginia and Massachusetts. This 
Grand Council had the freedom of Assemblies as to meet- 
ing, and, with the President-General, were to have power 
of handling colonization and purchase of western lands, un- 
til new colonies were created, and power of the purse and 
appointments. In fact it was modelled largely on constitu- 
tions like that of Pennsylvania's of 1701, except that the 
chief executive was to be independent of the legislative body 
because supported by the crown. It was submitted to the 



30 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

British government and the colonies, but in the independence 
of the chief executive and taxing power it was too strong 
for the colonies and in the rest was too powerful for the 
mother country, and so came to naught. Its consideration 
by the colonies, however, as well as its creation largely by 
Editor Franklin, was undoubtedly most suggestive of future 
possibilities to them and to him, especially to him'.^ 

With the arrival of another native American chief ex- 
ecutive, Robert Hunter Morris, Chief Justice of New Jersey 
for the past sixteen years, still holding that office and des- 
tined to do so for many more years to come, — in October 
of this year, 1754, the Assembly are quick to demand his 
instructions and bring him to a test before the year was 
done and precipitate a war upon him forthwith. They knew 
he was brought in, as an outsider, to do what Governor 
Hamilton, as a resident, found too uncomfortable to do, 
and they wasted no time in aggressive action, and the course 
of their predecessors, in David Lloyd's time, was a source 
of precedent to them as well as inspiration. They of course 
conceive of the Lords Justice's instructions and executive 
bond against paper money as due to Proprietary influence, 
but deny the right of either. On December 31st they publish 
the correspondence of the previous year with the Proprie- 
taries, in which it became openly known that the latter's 
Pennsylvania estates escaped taxation in both the province 
and in England ! This publicity had incensed the Penns 
who say "you, unadvisedly, publish to the world, that our 
estate, in America, is exempt from' the burdens borne by our 
fellow subjects in Great Britain"; and they advise the As- 
sembly "to be very careful not to put people here in mind 
of that single exemption !" They intimate that if Parlia- 
ment does it, they will also tax Pennsylvania's estates, but 
the Assembly are not to be moved by any such impossible 
case, li the imported New Jersey governor will not pass 
paper-money bills, it is because he has secret instructions 
not to do so ; and they are illegal. 

^ The attempted purchase by Pennsylvania of the Indians this year is 
shown, on a map at p. 28 in Life and Times of Thomas Smith, 1745-1809, by 
Burton Alva Konkle. All other Indian purchases are also indicated. 



THE IMPORTER AND THE EDITOR 31 

The gauntlet is thus thrown down by Proprietary and 
Governor on the one side and the Assembly and people on 
the other. The dead-lock continues during 1755 with in- 
creasing irritation until on May 16th, the New Jersey Qiief 
Justice executive tells them wrath fully that they want to 
increase their own power and destroy that of the Crown ; 
that they purpose a "scheme of future independency"; that 
their power is "already too great for a branch of a subordi- 
nate dependent government" — citing the fact that because 
he wouldn't sign paper-money bills, they had borrowed 
money on Assembly credit alone and paid it out on their 
own power, and created bills of credit, now circulating as 
currency, to the amount of £15,000; that he will see whether 
they have such power by laying the facts before the Crown. 
The Assembly retort, among other things, that they have 
no scheme of independence, never had, nor want any but 
what their constitution guarantees them, and that is to make 
laws as they please and not by anyone's else direction. He 
is reminded that they have a right, by law, to dispose of 
certain public moneys. They indicate that he is no friend of 
liberty and they expect no co-operation from him. By mid- 
summer of 1755, the New Jersey Chief Justice Governor 
is inclined to consent to taxation of Proprietary estates if 
the executive can have a share in choice of the assessor of 
them. On August 16th Chief Justice Allen and others try 
to compromise matters by oflfering £500 in lieu of what the 
Penns would have to pay, but on the 19th the Assembly 
naively suggest that this can be used as security to reim- 
burse the Governor for damages for signing the new £50,- 
000 bill ! They show him that the Proprietary, with over 
half of government, was at first always intended to pay 
executive salary, and that because of poverty of William 
Penn quit-rents were voted, temporarily ; but, when Lieu- 
tenant-Governors w^ere sent over they thought this not 
enough and licenses and fees were voted them, also tem- 
porarily, — a second source of support of executive; these 
two not being considered enough by grasping executives, 
presents of a few hundred pounds were given as a third 
source of support, also temporarily. Soon all of these were 



32 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

claimed as a right! And all this time claim of exemption 
of private estates of the Penns was insisted upon — a thing 
that no King of Great Britain dares claim. On September 
29th, they tell him that his conduct as a Governor "appears 
to us the most likely thing in the world to make people 
incline to a democracy, who would otherwise never have 
dreamt of it." They wish the Governor could be as easily 
changed by the people's election as the Assembly can be, 
and Pennsylvania would then not be, as he has called it, 
"an unfortunate country." It is time they should be parted, 
they tell himi; the King is a better landlord ! 

This contest resulted in the appearance in England of a 
pamphlet called "A Brief 5'^a/^^[ment?] of the Province of 
Pennsylvania, issued in 1755 anonymously, as was usual, 
showing that the colony was more of a republic than in 
early days, saying that a law of 1723, secured from the Pro- 
prietary in order to get money from the Assembly to pre- 
vent foreclosure of mortgage on the colony, gave the As- 
sembly control of disposal of moneys voted and made both 
executive and nearly all officers of government dependent 
on the Assembly. This had made the colony practically a 
republic ever since. It proposed a test-law of allegiance to 
every member of Assembly, and, because the German set- 
tlers followed the Quakers in opposition to war-support, it 
proposed a plan of Pennsylvania-ization, nuich like present- 
day Americanization. The Assembly considered it a Pro- 
prietary propaganda and when it was discovered that Pro- 
vost William Smith of the College of Philadelphia was the 
author they attempted to punish him, in one of the pictur- 
esque episodes of the day. A second edition was published 
by friends of the Assembly, incorporating reply to it, in 
which it is said: "After all the having proprietary govern- 
ments in a country is incompatible with the rights of Crowns. 
It is a kind of imperium in imperio, and consequently a 
solecism in politics," and the Quakers, at least, wish most 
ardently that "their gracious King would take them under 
his own protection."^ 

^ A second edition, with an answer, issued in 17S6, p. 54, of the answer, 
and also p. 80. 



THE IMPORTER AND THE EDITOR 33 

The dead-lock continued until the New Jersey Qiief 
Justice resigned and on August 19, 1756, announced a new 
executive on the way from New York, and that he himself 
was soon to retire again to the wool-sack. The Penns now 
determined not to try any American as executive, but 
selected a cultivated Oxford man and gentleman, a member 
of the Dilettanti Club of London, of baronial ancestry, con- 
nected with the Raleighs and Sidneys, and with army ex- 
perience, Colonel William Denny, a bachelor in his prime at 
forty-seven years of age.^ Governor Denny personally made 
a good impression and was at once voted £600, chiefly no 
doubt because he showed a perfect willingness to show his 
private instructions and put all his cards on the table in 
perfect frankness. During August they began trying him 
out on a £40,000 paper-money bill, for his instructions did 
yield on a certain kind of taxation of Proprietary estates, 
collectable from the tenant and deductible from their rent. 
The Assembly protested the instructions, however, although 
they compromised on £30,000 and waived their rights for 
the moment, but on September 23rd, they showed by an 
elaborate analysis of the elaborate instructions that the Pro- 
prietaries were indicating in great detail what a tax bill 
must be which Governor Denny was permitted to sign, and 
they proposed moving against the proprietors at once. 

By this time, the situation seemed to be resolving itself 
into one somewhat like that in the time of David Lloyd and 
Penn, namely, the Assembly's exasperations at the number 
of obstacles in the way of securing the passage of a law 
designed to solve the great difficulties of the province. 
David Lloyd had fought out, as it was supposed, once and for 
all a Proprietary veto over their gubernatorial agent's acts, 
and here it was bobbing up again. It was supposed that 
David Lloyd had reduced the obstacles to the passage of a 
law from about eight, practically to two. and essentially to 
one, the assent of the Assembly itself. The Proprietary 
now seemed to be trying to revive one of these obstacles and 
incidentally arouse in the colonial office and crown mani- 
festations of interference. The only thing to do now, if the 

^ From sketch by Dr. John W. Jordan, in The Pennsylvania Magazine. 



34 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Governor did not ignore his instructions, was to secure 
transfer of the Province from Proprietary to Crown. In 
October, Editor Frankhn had secured a most able aid in his 
leadership in probably the most brilliant and able lawyer 
in the province, Joseph Galloway, and by mid-winter of 
1756-7 they put up a £100,000 tax bill to Governor Denny, 
who merely points out that they can see it is against his 
instructions, and he says he will not quarrel with them. 
They remonstrate on January 26, 1757, in an ultimatum and 
order Editor Franklin and Speaker Norris to England as 
Agents-in-Chief, although only the forniier was able to go, 
causing leadership of the Assembly to be transferred to 
Lawyer Galloway, a combination, namely of Franklin in 
London, with Patridge and Charles as assistants, and Gallo- 
way as leader of the Assembly, which was hard to beat. 
This vigorous fight, during 1758, resulted in more virulent 
episodes in which Provost Smith was again arrested by the 
Assembly and Justice William Moore of Chester county 
charged with libel — so virulent that these two gentlemen 
found it advisable to absent themselves from the province 
for awhile. 

Of what seems to be these arrests and hearings, Mr. 
Bryan has left some comment, speaking of them as those 
"who were most obnoxious to the prevailing side, but one 
person directly perjuring himself by accusing an absent 
person, and another, giving cause to fear the like, the in- 
quiry dropped with a reprimand and charge of extravagant 
fees to their clerk, sergeant-at-arms and the witnesses, &c. 
During this inquiry a gentleman well respected by all 
parties, who had been a member of Assembly for several 
years, but of late declined on account of party disputes, was 
called as an evidence, but he, questioning their authority 
to administer an oath and desiring to be satisfied of this, 
was grossly abused and treated as a fool and knave. How- 
ever, fearing to meddle with a man so unexceptionable, he 
was dismissed, while others were threatened with imprison- 
ment, for this pretended offense. The last Assembly pre- 
pared a bill for regulating the Indian trade, but insisting 
on the sole nomination of the officers to execute the act. 




Governor William Denny 

1756 to 1759 

From a painting by George Knapton at the Society of Dilettanti, London 

Courtesy of TIic Pcinisyht'ania Magazine 



THE IMPORTER AND THE EDITOR 35 

and appointing them chiefly out of their own house, it was 
rejected by the Governor. Some da3's ago this bill was 
revived, naming four Assemblymen and five otliers Com- 
missioners for Indian Affairs; of these nine, seven are 
Quakers. The Governor proposes by way of amendment to 
strike the four first and three of the last and name others, as 
all will allow, unexceptionable men, but of different sects and 
parties, and that vacancies be supplied by act of legislature, 
instead of being named by the house as they intended. He 
adds a clause, making the ofiice of member and Commis- 
sioner of Indian affairs incompatible ; that th.e latter may 
be more easily brought to account, which could not be ex- 
pected of the principal and leading member of Assembly. 

"You may gather," he continues, "from this last story, 
that it is for power and influence our people contend. They 
know the allurements of offices and posts of profit and how 
far their having the disposal of these gives influence. Seven 
out of nine being Quakers is proof of the weight of that sect, 
to preserve which they will leave no stone unturned. There 
is much uncertain talk of an attempt to be made against 
Ticonderoga, under Lord Howe. No disturbance from our 
Indians at present." 

The fight continued during the summer, and Mr. Bryan 
again writes, under date of 5th July [1758] : "Governor 
Denny seems not calculated for either the King's or the 
people's service. Mr. Bernard is just arrived Governor of 
New Jersey. No progress of importance has been made 
in the business on which Mr. Franklin was sent to London 
by the Assembly. The fleet of transports sailed on the 
28th May from Halifax, since which we have not heard of 
them. The land forces were above 13,000, besides marines 
that might be landed if necessary. But you will have early 
news of them. The frigate belonging to this province is 
now out on her station, but has hitherto seen no enemy. To 
maintain her, 15 pence, currency, per ton is laid on all ship- 
ping clearing out of here, 30 per pipe on wines, Id per 
gallon on spirits, 3 shillings per ton on refined sugar, &c., 
imported here, a tax much opposed by the traders, but 
warmly pushed forward by the country. 



36 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

"Contention is here as rife as ever, tho' carried on more 
calmly. The Quakers, on the one hand, leave nothing un- 
attempted to secure to themselves the direction of the 
government, which is no easy task, as they are, in time of 
war, very unfit for it. They have led the Indians to give as 
a reason for the war, that the Proprietors have cheated 
them of their lands. This afifords a fine handle for clamor, 
and puts the consideration of their unfitness for public of- 
fices out of people's heads. The treaty before mentioned is 
another mighty matter, but they find savages not quite 
manageable enough, and therefore this seems a scheme of 
no long life, except General Forbes' success over the French 
should terrify them, and then our peace-makers will claim 
all the honor. It would be endless to mention all the artifices 
used to divide those who are not of their society: lying, 
misrepresentation and false reports are hourly practiced. 
And in Assembly where there are 18 Quakers out of 36 
members, new strifes are introduced every sitting about the 
right to appoint to offices, which, you know, gives a mighty 
influence to the persons or party who enjoy it. Of the other 
18, who are people of various views and interests, some 
few are partizans of the Proprietaries and others so 
much heated against the Quakers as not to oppose any 
measures however affecting the province, provided only the 
Quakers were incapacitated and brought down. The greater 
part see that no war-like measures can be prosecuted to 
effect, while Quakers preside in public councils, especially 
as they are forced to keep us in hot water, among ourselves 
in war time, lest they should lose their significance. This 
party is ill connected, has no heads of much influence and 
is scarce ever unanimous, when, as the Quakers are like a 
disciplined regiment and having no trouble with their own 
members, proceed coolly on their plans, which savor how- 
ever, more of cunning than wisdom. This may be accounted 
for from their restrained principles. 

"The division among the Presbyterians," he continues, 
"which happened about fourteen years ago, on Mr. White- 
field's coming over, about the tokens of regeneration, &c., 
is lately made up and their united synod sat here in May, 



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THE IMPORTER AND THE EDITOR 2>7 

consists of 150 ministers and upwards, who all use the 
Scotch form of church government and adhere to the West- 
minster Confession in the Calvinistic sense. Most of the 
Episcopal clergy in these parts are of little reputation, some 
are discarded Presbyterians and the rest generally of no 
education, taken up for want of better. I know only of ten 
congregations in this province and the Delaware counties of 
the Church of England and these are small, except that in 
this city, which is numerous, and might well be divided."^ 

These perspicacious and penetrating observations show 
a grasp of the elements of political life and a profound in- 
terest in them at this early period of Governor Denny's 
administration in 1758, that fully account for the remarka- 
ble political ability that he was destined to show in actual 
operation in a comparatively few years. It also shows his 
alignment against the Quaker anti-Proprietary party, with 
which Franklin was identified, and a concern for a united 
opposition and efficient leadership, in which, by implication, 
he looks hopefully upon the new union of Presbyterians 
to which he refers, centering about the followers of White- 
field and Tennant and the Second Presbyterian Cliurch, at 
Third and Arch Streets, of which he was a member. 

But, to return to the provincial executive and his strug- 
gle, the pressure of the French and Indian War and of the 
Assembly was too great for Governor Denny; early in 1759, 
and in April, when the King and General Amherst called for 
supplies, and on the 17th, when he yielded and agreed to the 
£100,000 supply bill, the Assembly voted him £1000, and on 
July 7th agreed to stand by him in case the Proprietary prose- 
cuted him. It was a great victory for the Assembly, but 
they still had to see it through in London, where Agent-in- 
Chief Franklin was to see to it that the colonial office and 
Crown did not disallow it. Governor Denny had followed 
in the footsteps of Governor Sir William Keith and it re- 
remained to be seen whether the Proprietary would consign 
him to the same fate. They did not displace him for a year, 
however, during which time the executive and legislature 
worked together well, and on September 29th, passed a law 

^ George Bryan's almanac diary in the MSS. Division, Library of Congress. 



38 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

making all judges of the courts hold commissions quain 
dill se bene gesseriiit, or during good behavior instead of 
pleasure of the Proprietary, which was designed to estab- 
lish the independence of the judiciary, but which was 
destined not to be allowed. 

And Agent-in-Chief Franklin at once began to take 
measures to see it through, one most notable feature of 
which was the appearance, in 1759, of An Historical Reznezv 
of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania, From 
Its Origin — so far as the legislative-executive contests were 
concerned. Like most controversial issues, this volume was 
anonymous, and, although it was ascribed to Dr. Franklin, 
he has authoritatively denied it, while admitting his con- 
nection with it. It has long since been conceived by the 
best authorities to be the work of his friend Ralph, who 
went over at that time. While colored by the atmosphere 
of this vitriolic contest and with a not very judicial spirit, it 
is still very ably written and preserves to succeeding gen- 
erations some most valuable documents, not to be found 
elsewhere, as, for instance, the famous Lloydean Remon- 
strance of 1704. The vitriolic and partizan heat of this con- 
test has prevented even historical scholars from yielding it 
the really valuable position it deserves as historical material. 
It is based on documentary evidence, as it announces on its 
title page, and there is no question but Dr. Franklin saw to 
its accuracy in that respect. No historical student of this 
colony can afford to ignore it, although, like much written 
from the provincial view-point alone and without knowledge 
of the colonial office and Proprietary private papers, it is 
supei-ficial as to the greater movements underlying the 
phenomena it describes. 

It shows, however, that the long executive-legislative 
contest, or — for it oftentimes took that form — the Proprie- 
tary-Assembly contest, had very real bases from the first 
colonizing proceedings under the charter of 1681, down to 
date ; but with especial emphasis on the administrations of 
Governors Hamilton, Morris and Denny, especially the 
second named, to which great space is given. Quite as im- 
portant as the text, if not more so, is the very large appendix 



THE IMPORTER AND THE EDITOR 39 

re-print of pertinent documents fromi the foundation of the 
colony. Thus it makes a good sized octavo vokime and was 
issued in dignified fomi in London in 1759, coincidentally 
with the consideration of the laws under Governor Denny, 
taxing the Proprietary estates, and it made a powerful im- 
pression, though it was somewhat bludgeon-like. And of 
course it was attributed to Agent Franklin, and, as has 
been said, so far as his purpose to use it as a political club 
is concerned, the suspicion was well-founded, altho he 
did not write it, as anyone familiar with his style need not 
be assured. 

Ex-Governor James Hamilton was in England during 
these recent months, and during mid-summer the Penns per- 
suaded him to undertake again to stand up against the As- 
sembly, the distinguished Philadelphian being a man of 
wealth and generally liked in the province. His commission 
was dated July 21st and on November 18, 1759, he again 
assumed the executive office. The war conditions making 
still further preparation necessary Governor Hamilton was 
presented with a £100,000 tax bill the early spring of 
1760 and on April 2nd he tells them he is in favor of taxing 
Proprietary estates, if they are more fair than Cumberland 
county was recently, and on April 10th he yields. In Sep- 
tember the Assembly presents some interesting statistics as 
a basis for taxation. The taxable citizens in the counties 
were as follows : Philadelphia county 5687 ; Philadelphia 
city, 2634; Chester county, 4761; Bucks, 3148; Lancaster, 
5638; York, 3302; Berks, 3016; Cumberland, 1501; and 
Northampton, 1989. It will thus be seen that Lancaster 
and Philadelphia were about equal, with Chester following 
somewhat closely, and that Cumberland had the fewest of 
all. They also learn from Agent Franklin that a propor- 
tionate distribution of money to the various provinces on 
account of the war gives Pennsylvania £26,902; and the 
Assembly orders Franklin and Charles, — Patridge being 
dead — to receive and deposit it, and incidentally they ask 
Governor Hamilton to certify this appointment under his 
seal, but he draws the line there in October, whereupon, 
when, in January, 1761, the Governor tells them the Privy 



40 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Council has disallowed their supply bill, and he asks them 
to join him in an address to the new King, George III ; they 
say they will do it separately. Furthermore, in the follow- 
ing March the Assembly decline to amend their supply bills 
along the line laid down by Mr. Pitt and throw down the 
gauntlet to him as well as to the Proprietary. On April 
14th, the Governor reminds them that Pennsylvanians are 
not an independent people and the Privy Covmcil, acting 
for the Crown, has a right to final decision, and they yield 
500 men for the army. Then they offer him a £30,000 sup- 
lay bill with all the features that the Privy Council had 
objected to — riders, separate from the main purpose of the 
bill, assumption of Assembly's sole right to dispose of public 
moneys, and compelling the Proprietaries to receive rents in 
paper money. When he objects, there is a dead-lock. Agent 
Franklin wants to come home and Charles refuses to act 
longer, whereupon John Sargent and other merchants in 
London are applied to to receive the deposited money of the 
province, and Editor Franklin prepares to come home dur- 
ing 1762. This was partly due to the close of the war and 
evidence of a reaction against the proposed transfer from 
Proprietary to Crown, because of fear of losing the precious 
constitution of 1701 — a movement that was to bring the 
Philadelphia merchant, George Bryan, into public life. 

An event of February 17, 1762, however, was to serve 
as an introduction to a semi-public life: this was an act 
passed on that day, replacing an act of April 29, 1758, grant- 
ing the king duties on tonnage and spirits to support a pro- 
vincial ship of war to protect the bay and river, which was 
now expiring. It provided for recovery of a large share of 
those duties uncollected and their application to pier iui- 
provements on the river and bay for the protection of ship- 
ping against ice, storms, and similar obstructions to naviga- 
tion on river and bay for Philadelphia in-ward or out-ward 
bound vessels. The act itself named the commissioners who 
were to have charge of this important enterprise and they 
were to be "Samuel Rhoads, Henry Harrison and Thomas 
Willing, Esquires, Thomas Wharton, George Bryan, Luke 
Morris and Peter Reeve, gentlemen." For several years 



THE IMPORTER AND THE EDITOR 41 

they were engaged in directing public works at Reedy Island^ 
which involved large piers and creation of new made land 
to rise above tide-water, involving considerably over £3000. 
Those who were particularly active in it and who made the 
report were Messrs. Bryan, Willing, Morris and Reeve. ^ 
He served as secretary and treasurer of the commission. This 
served to attract attention to Mr. Bryan's capacity and con- 
cientiousness as a public officer, and it was to be referred to 
when he was first selected for full public service. 

1 For this report see Votes of Assembly of 20th Sept, 1765. For the act 
see Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania, Vol. VI, pp. 173-177. 



CHAPTER IV 
Mr. Bryan Defeats Editor Franklin 

AND 

Holds to the Old Constitution 

1763 

The dead-lock between Governor Hamilton and the As- 
sembly, continuing in 1762, caused such irritation that, for 
the first time, they adjourned without the consent or agree- 
ment of the executive, even if the Crown did ask for sol- 
diers in preparation for any further eventuality with 
France. On March 11th, however, they yielded 1000 men, 
but before the end of the month put up a £70,000 supply 
bill on the same old lines and with the same executive ob- 
jection. On May 7th, however, on hearing of war with 
Spain, they again yield and order fortifications and vote £23,- 
500. The accident of the death of a member from Philadel- 
phia county, Representative Leech, was occasion for the first 
electoral expression of the reaction against the plans of 
Editor Franklin, namely, in the choice of a successor who 
was to take his seat on May 12th. This was a young law- 
yer, John Dickinson by name, and of almost the same age 
as Mr. Bryan. He was the son of a Maryland Judge and 
in 1750 began the study of the law under the distinguished 
lawyer, John Moland, later pursuing his studies in the 
Temple in London. He had been admitted to the bar only 
in 1757, but, as he had inherited means, was able to live the 
life of a student and country gentleman, known to be deeply 
interested in the subjects of history, especially the political 
and constitutional field. He was content to be an observer 
until the mid-winter meeting of 1762-3, during which time 
one or two matters of interest came up that may be noted 
at this point : The Assembly on May 12th ordered the whole 
of the "State House Square," as this purchase made it, 

42 



MR. BRYAN DEFEATS EDITOR FRANKLIN 43 

bought to Walnut Street, and they received a petition from 
merchants of Philadelphia pointing out that both New York 
and Maryland had opened up transportation to the back 
country gained by the war and proclaimed British territory 
by the King, and suggesting a route by way of the Susque- 
hanna to the Ohio River and Great Lakes. News was also 
received on September 21st, that Editor Franklin was on his 
way home and had left affairs of Pennsylvania in the hands 
of Richard Jackson of the Inner Temple, the one whom 
Lamb in his Elia describes as a bencher and Johnson said 
should be called the "All Knowing," instead of the "om- 
nicient Jackson," as was common then, because the latter 
belonged to the Supreme Being alone. He was standing 
counsel for the South Sea Company, one of counsel for 
Cambridge University and law officer of the Board of 
Trade, and, incidentally, a native of Dublin. If Parliament 
had listened to his counsel they would have avoided much 
disaster in America. 

On January 11, 1763, Franklin, Galloway, Dickinson and 
others were again present in Assembly, and things began 
moving. The Assembly, during February and March pay 
great honor to Editor Franklin and his co-agent, Mr. 
Charles, and on April 2nd, adopt the suggestion that Mr. 
Jackson be agent in full charge. Governor Hamilton, on 
January 18th, had said that the £100,000 supply bill of 1759 
must now be modified as Agents Franklin and Charles had 
promised, but it was retorted, on February 25th, that as no 
injustice had been done, no change was necessary. The 
dead-lock continues, but the Governor's announcement on 
July 5th, of the close of the continental war, was one source 
of relief at least. On September 27th, it was, that a pe- 
tition from Mr, Bryan and two other prominent merchants, 
already referred to, concerning an inmate of the debtor's 
prison, first brought his name before the Assembly officially. 

During October a new Assembly election was held, but 
as the Governor noted with despair it was much the same as 
for years past. On the 14th, however, occurred an event of 
hope to him, namely, in the leaving of Editor Franklin off 
of the committee of correspondence with Agent Jackson, 



44 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

and the placing thereon of the two brilliant gentlem'en law- 
yers, Galloway and Dickinson, a compromise, but not so 
much of a compromise as Editor Franklin's friends were 
to discover. This was also followed on the 31st of that 
month by the additional and somewdiat disconcerting arrival 
of Governor John Penn, grandson of the Founder, who had 
been over in 1753 as a member of Council and also of the 
Albany congress of the following year. He was a wise 
and vigorous executive, but was sent over because Governor 
Hamilton, while he held the Assembly at bay with unusual 
skill and good nature, was not partizan enough of the Pro- 
prietary. His appearance was therefore an encouragement 
to the rising reaction against Editor Franklin's anti-Pro- 
prietary attitude, and on November 21st, he received evi- 
dence of it in a formal greeting from nearly two hundred 
leading merchants of Philadelphia that was very significant 
of the probable vigor of that reaction. It was headed by the 
Mayor of Philadelphia, Thomas Willing, who was almost 
the same age as Mr. Bryan, born in 1731, educated as a 
lawyer in the Temple, becoming a member of the firm of 
Willing and Morris (Robert), probably best known mer- 
chants in Philadelphia, an alderman of the city, a Judge 
of its Court of Common Pleas since 1761, and altogether 
one of the ablest leaders of the province. And among the 
names that followed Mr. Willing's was that of Mr. Bryan. 
Among others also were William Plumsted, Thomas Law- 
rence, Charles Stedman, Samuel Mififlin, Joseph Richardson, 
William Fisher, John Baynton, Samuel Wharton, Chas. Wil- 
ling, Jos. Wharton, Jr., Samuel Purviance, Robert Morris, 
William Morris, Clement Biddle, Thomas Wharton, John 
Sayre, William Morrell, Cadwalader Morris, Enoch Story, 
Wm. Bradford, Geo. Clymer, R. Meredith, Chas. Coxe, 
Joseph Redmond, John Bayard, Benj. Mifflin, Samuel Clark, 
Samuel Meredith, James Wallace, James Chalmers, Jos. 
Saunders, Joshua Howell, George Morgan, George Roberts, 
Henry Keppele, James Mease, Charles Meredith, John Gib- 
son, John Cadwalader, Thomas Mifflin, John Murray, 
Thomas Montgomery, Benj. Levy, Cornelius Bradford, 
Wm. Henry, John Biddle, Buckridge Sims, William Pusey, 



MR. BRYAN DEFEATS EDITOR FRANKLIN 45 

Wm. Gibbons, John Ord, James Gordon, Townsend White, 
Wm. Ball, John Allen, John Nixon, Thomas Bond, Jr., 
Charles Thomson, Michael Hillegas, John Chew, Tench 
Francis, and others. They bespoke his holding the prin- 
ciples and purposes of the Founder, his grandfather, and 
seemed altogether pleased at the new situation. And most 
of these were among the first citizens of Philadelphia and 
destined to be distinguished later on. 

The beginning of 1764 brought reproof of Pennsylvania 
from the Crown, through Lord Halifax, because of General 
Amhurst's complaint about the supply bill dead-locks, but 
the Assembly is not disturbed and intimates that the Gen- 
eral prevaricated. On January 12th, Governor Penn laid 
his instructions before the Assembly and it was plain that 
he was to be, what, in modern political parlance, is called 
a "stand-patter." The custom of the Assembly was to have 
closed doors, except at hearings, and they talk plainly among 
themselves and to the executive, so that when, on March 
8th, the Governor objects to the supply bill on the usual 
grounds, they tell him he is merely standing on a certain 
special definition of the Privy Council order anyhow, and 
that they now know why he displaced Governor Hamilton. 
On the 24th the Committee on Grievances reported and it 
was the final gauntlet and ultimatum to the Proprietary. It 
used such terms as the "load of obloquy and guilt" of the 
Penn family, and assure them that "artifices to inflame the 
public" won't avail them. There are twenty-five heads of 
grievances among them being that the Proprietary have no 
legislative power, for the Governor only has it ; instructions 
therefore are illegal, and the cause of all delay; no injustice 
to Proprietary estates has been intended ;^ the Proprietary 
and their deputies have received near £80,000 in forty years 
from the Assembly; present Proprietors have tried to take 

^-This referred to the fact that when the Denny bills were before the 
Privy Council for royal approval on September 2, 1760, and six of them were 
disallowed, the seventh was allowed to stand on the assurances of Agents 
Franklin and Charles that if they worked injustice in the taxation of all estates, 
especially those of the Proprietary, the Assembly would pass the amendments 
suggested by the Privy Council. The Proprietors accepted it on that basis, but 
now the Assembly, as judge, declared the £100,000 supply taxation bill of 
1759 (or 2nd Sept., 1760) did not work injustice. The difficulty now was that in 
the new bill Governor Penn wanted the language of the Privy Council inserted 
instead of the Franklin party's interpretation of it 



46 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

away liberties ; their exorbitant demands for lands drove 
people to other states ; their avarice demanded that their 
lands be not taxed nor their quit rents, forcing the Assembly 
to get all these decided against them at expense and w^hile 
fighting for their property against enemies ; they even wanted 
judges commissioned at pleasure, instead of during good 
behavior; they misrepresented the people to the King; the 
Assembly give notice that they will not let this executive 
appoint officers and so increase Proprietary power, nor will 
they accept the Governor's definition of Privy Council 
terms. They assert that the growing power of the Pro- 
prietary is dangerous in the extreme, and they propose ap- 
pealing to be transferred to the Crown! They order it pub- 
lished. On May 18th, Governor Penn still "standing pat," 
petitions to the Crown appear, asking that the only two re- 
maining Proprietary governments in America be taken over 
by the Crown, because it is impossible for such govern- 
ments to operate from the nature of such governments. 
Even the Quakers joined in the petition. The following day 
young Mr. Dickinson was added to the Grievances Com- 
mittee, and on the 23rd petition was ordered to the King, 
while more petitions came in from various counties. 

Fortunately, Mr. Bryan's interpretation of these wants 
are available. Under date, Philadelphia 21st March, 1764, he 
says: "The Governor charges the Assembly with artifice 
in framing the Supply bill sent up to him and refuses to 
concur, so that there is little prospect of it passing." On 
April 13th, he says further: "Our Assembly have adjourned 
until May, without making provision for the support of the 
provincial troops or for entering into the vigorous measures 
proposed by the King's General in order to bring the shock- 
ing calamiities our frontier people labor under, to a speedy 
conclusion. You will see by the printed papers the violent 
lengths they have gone in certain resolves against the pro- 
prietaries and their administration. This is all artifice, for 
our people began to grow very uneasy and dissatisfied with 
the Quaker measures; and those of our five frontier coun- 
ties to cry out for a redress of grievances, and particularly 
for more representatives (of their counties). In short, 



MR. BRYAN DEFEATS EDITOR FRANKLIN 47 

being accused by General Amherst and Sir William John- 
son of interfering in Indian affairs, and likely to be ousted 
here, they [the Quaker leaders] found it expedient to raise 
a loud noise enough to drown all others ; and nothing ap- 
peared so [safe ?] to take, as a dispute with the Proprie- 
taries, and accordingly they contrived to differ with the 
Governor on the stale subject of his share of the taxes, a 
mode for which had been settled by the King and Council 
in a very clear manner. However, those who are determined 
to differ seldom want a pretext, and, accordingly, the mean- 
ing of the Royal decree was brought on the carpet and said 
to be doubtful and that words must be added to give it a 
reasonable explanation. The Governor, considering the 
decree as an instruction to him, refused to admit the ex- 
planation. On this the house, after voting the Proprietary 
government a nuisance, adjourned, with great seeming heat, 
to consult with their constituents on the necessity of pe- 
titioning the King to assume the immediate governmient of 
the province. Though the Quaker politicians were full in 
the plan, yet Friends in general show much reluctance to 
this violent and hasty measure, and indeed, whether they 
be serious or not, it is playing a very deep game. Our 
superiors in Great Britain would like to have the new model- 
ling of the charter provinces, and, though we should crave 
only for a removal of Messrs. Penn's perpetual right of 
government, yet the opportunity might be laid hold on to 
make many alternatives not much to our liking. Sensible 
of this, the measure has been received very cooly by a great 
majority of the inhabitants. And though great artifice and 
industry are used by the promoters of this business, no 
great progress is made in procuring subscribers to the pe- 
tition, especially of the more thinking part of the people, 
who view it as an artifice entirely, to shift the scene here 
and on that side, if possible, to make people believe that 
the Proprietaries, not the Quakers, are at fault. But all 
[of it?] will not do; and they are exceedingly afraid that 
an act of Parliament will pass to disable them from sitting 
in Assembly and [they] scarce know how to take any steps 
to ward it off. The present clamor too much hurt them 



48 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

with the ministry, as the Proprietaries are only urging the 
Royal decree. 

"Finding the backwardness of sober people to embark in 
high-flown, rash schemes, they begin to wish, 'tis thought, 
they had passed the bill (for a supply) ; and to prevent 
present inconveniences from rising to a greater height, they 
take pains to keep the provincial soldiery in humor until 
the Assembly shall meet again, which is in May. The con- 
fusion brought on by these transactions is fed and height- 
ened by pamphlets, which come out almost daily, those on 
the side of the Quakers abusive and impertinent, tending to 
a shift in the scene, and the other side pushing home the 
grievances of the frontier people in the plainest terms and 
so unanswerably that the Quakers have no game left to 
play, but to raise a bustle great enough to call off the public 
attention. Even prints appear, in one of which an Irish 
settler is represented as ridden by a Quaker who muzzles 
and restrains him from using his musket against an Indian 
who is destroying his house, &c., and the Quaker leads a 
German by the nose, to express the artifice by which the 
High Dutch have been retained in their interest. 

"These things are doing in town. In the country the 
petitions for a change of government are less liked, es- 
pecially as you approach the frontier. On the contrary, 
petitions, the same in substance with the Remonstrance of 
the Paxton people (or insurgents) are signing and coming 
down addressed to the Governor and Assembly. What 
scene will open when they meet, is hard to say, but the 
tottering cause of the Quakers requires that some new 
clamor be raised, some popular bustle be made to arouse and 
divert the public attention from the right object. But 
whether all this will do is very questionable, as the present 
artifice is so thin as to be too generally seen through. They 
are exceedingly artful in these things and equally indus- 
trious in carrying them into execution. Dr. Benjamin 
Franklin hath gone deep with the Quakers into this busi- 
ness. He is much offended with the little notice which 
Messrs. Penn took of him in Great Britain and resents it 
much; but as he is an officer under the Crown (Postmaster 



MR. BRYAN DEFEATS EDITOR FRANKLIN 49 

General) and his son another, it would appear very ill- 
timed and imprudent in him to oppose the administration 
and keep up so hot a contention, as it is well known that 
he proposed this scheme of a change of government and is 
perhaps the only man that is serious in it. Possibly he may 
think he acts more in the views of the Ministry by playing 
this high card, than if he coincided with the decree. How- 
ever that be, it is certain he never could have worked up 
the Quakers to this in any other circumstances. They made 
the Proprietaries a butt, indeed, when it was necessary to 
shift off the clamor of the people against their holding 
places in the Assembly, in time of war, by raising a greater 
against the Penns ; but [they] never seriously intended to 
part with the Proprietary government, as appeared very 
plainly some years ago, when, having pushed matters as far 
as that they feared the Penns would, in disgust, sell their 
rights to the Crown, tired with being thus baited — I say, the 
Quakers, as a religious society, addressed them in very 
affectionate terms and begged they would not part with their 
right of government, assuring them that they had no hand 
in the debate &c. Some people suspect they will act the 
same disingenuous part over again now. 

"These contentions are extremely unreasonable and even 
cruel, as our fellow-subjects on the borders are in a great 
measure abandoned to a relentless enemy, and many, when 
they lie down, have great cause to dread they shall not rise 
in safety. Some think the Quakers are not displeased at 
this, as it reduces other people not of their society to some 
proportion with them, and [they] urge the Quakers' conduct 
in raising jealousies in the minds of the Indians tending to 
make them believe the Proprietaries had cheated them. 

"But the differences in this province are hurtful also to 
the rest. The Ministry complain of the difficulty of getting 
men and money raised by the colonies, seasonably and con- 
nectedly, and at this very time are devising taxes and funds 
to support troops at our cost. Such ill-timed disputes give 
countenance to these schemes and will force even the milder 
part of our Superiors into measures for our preservation, 
which may, in their effects, be very vexatious. I fear Penn- 
sylvania will give her sister colonies cause to curse her." 



50 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Two weeks later, on April 26th, he continues his illumi- 
nating comments. "Aly last told you," he writes, "that our 
Assembly and their props, the Quakers, driven into difficul- 
ties by the effects of their own paltry schemes and tempo- 
rary expedients, for some years past, had been induced to 
strike at the Proprietary jurisdiction and to talk of asking 
a royal government. Different motives have led the pro- 
posers and encouragers of this scheme to this length. 
Franklin and somie others are in earnest and have, possibly, 
waited for an opportunity of bringing it about for some 
years. He would like a journey to London. His son got 
his government of New Jersey from Lord Bute, and per- 
haps the supposed service to the Crown of ruining a Pro- 
prietary government, much censured everywhere, may be 
rewarded with the post of King's Governor. His depend- 
ants then have the way open to offices of profit in gift of 
the administration. As to the consequences to others, or 
the body of the people, politicians, who have self-interest 
in view, cannot be expected to attend to them. Great num- 
bers of Quakers, latterly, concur in this petition. They 
would fondly have drawn in others and stood clear them- 
selves, knowing that, if they could fix an odium on the Pro- 
prietaries by the vote of the more disinterested part of the 
people, the blame laid on themselves would be lightened if 
not transferred, and they could stand neuter in the busi- 
ness and prevent the petition from being effectual by inter- 
posing with and for the Proprietaries &c. But as the pro- 
posal for a change of government was new and ran against 
popular prejudice, and, with considerate people, was looked 
on as dangerous, it being impossible to say how far the 
present policy of the Ministry would lead them in new- 
modelling the governm'ent of a province, whose inhabitants 
appear factious and troublesome, in their eyes and in [those 
of] the world. A paper is published here, said to be written 
by Dr. Franklin, entitled Cool Thoughts &c., intended to 
induce the people to sign the petition.^ It is a very artful, 

1 This pamphlet referred to by Mr. Bryan says, on page 9 — "One project 
is, to turn all Quakers out of the Assembly; or, by obtaining more members 
for the back counties, to get a majority in, who are not Quakers. This, per- 
haps, is not very difficult to do;" etc. Here also the author of Cool Thoughts 



MR. BRYAN DEFEATS EDITOR FRANKLIN 51 

but superficial piece. There are great pains taken and 
every artifice employed to procure names to the petition, 
no matter who ; almost as great as to procure votes at an 
election. The Quakers, finding it opposed and heavy, sign 
fast and fall into the views of Franklin, without having at 
first intended it. 

"They are evidently pursuing a wild scheme and, if they 
can shake the Proprietary authority, must expect, as con- 
cerned in government, to fall with it. What effect it may 
have on others, it is hard to say ; but it must not be expected 
that several peculiar advantages of this constitution will be 
continued. And all, dissenting from the Church of England, 
would do well to consider how far their privileges would 
be likely to be impared." 

On the following day he added a paragraph : "A little 
army is forming, to be commanded by Col. Bradstreet, in 
order to repel the western Indians, who disturb our forts 
and trade at Detroit and Mackilimakinac, &c. Sir William 
Johnson seems to have quieted the Senecas and other Iro- 
quois who infested the pass at Niagara last year. But we 
should like to hear of his Indians having put some of the 
Delawares &c. to death, who have ravaged the borders of 
this province and Virginia. It would look more like war, 
and have lasting good consequences from the spirit of re- 
venge which Indians cultivate as a virtue. This would de- 
fend us better than 50 battalions of Regulars. Sir William 
is mighty showy in his transactions and I would hope he 
does not make so much ado without grounds."^ 

On the 24th of May, Mr. Dickinson voiced the reaction, 
in his first famous address. His chief plea was that it 
endangered the precious constitution of 1701 and all the 



says: "Religion has happily nothing to do with our present differences, tho' 
great pains is taken to lug it into the squabble." Further on he says: "An- 
other project is, to chuse none for Assemblymen but such as are friends to 
the Proprietaries." He advocates immediate Royal government, and says it 
would not be a change of government, hut only a change of governor, as the 
constitution of Pennsylvania has already been fixed by constitution and laws 
approved by the Crown. 

1 George Bryan's almanac diary. Library of Congress, MSS. Division. This 
part of the diary seems, from its wording, as if he had written it to be repro- 
duced in many copies by an amanuensis for a nimierous correspondence of a 
political nature. At any r;ite, that was his cu.stom most of the time during 
the coming years of his life, and this text would be finely ca.lculated to build 
up a political following of lieutenants in various parts of the state. 



52 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

blessings that had come from it. He claimed that the best 
way would be to have a decision by the Crown on the point 
at issue between the Assembly and Proprietary, and that 
would indicate what might be expected of government 
under the Crown. He insisted that the good royal govern- 
ment of the Jerseys was because Pennsylvania was just 
across the river as a model and the people could not be kept 
on the east bank unless they were given equal liberties. 
The Carolinas were the only other colonies that in any way 
gained by being a royal province. Thus, too, this was revo- 
lution and the people had not formally elected them on any 
such basis. The published address at once appealed to the 
old love for the constitution of 1701. But Mr. Galloway 
promptly replied to it in published form and with the result 
that on May 26th, on the retirement of Speaker Norris 
occasioning election of his successor, Editor Franklin was 
chosen ! At this, Mr. Dickinson, on the 28th voiced a pro- 
test, in attempting to secure permission to spread his re- 
marks on the minutes, but he was supported only by a mem- 
ber from Lancaster and one from Cumberland county, 
against a solid wall of twenty-four votes. Mr. Dickinson's 
efforts, however, did result in the house ordering their agent 
to insist on no change in the liberties and privileges of the 
colonies. The house also temporarily waives a few rights 
and changes the supply bill so that it was passed by Gov- 
ernor Penn on the 30th, but he was warned by the xA.ssembly 
that they proposed to have a government soon in which they 
would not be compelled to waive a right in order to vote 
a supply bill. 

Summer passed, and on September 12th the Assembly 
considered a letter of 25th June, from Otis and others of 
Boston calling attention to the dangers of the Sugar Act 
in Parliament and of stamp duties and asking a general 
remonstrance. A letter dated March 24th in London and 
published June 4th in New York and on the 7th in Phila- 
delphia, showed that the slowness and refusals of the 
colonies to give as much as the imperial government desired, 
had led to these measures, and that the Fifteenth resolution, 
regarding stamp duties in Parliament was held up chiefly 



MR. BRYAN DEFEATS EDITOR FRANKLIN 53 

through the efiforts of the Pennsylvania Chief Justice, Wil- 
Ham Allen, the wealthiest merchant in the colony, who hap- 
pend to be in London at that time and had influential rela- 
tions with leading men. The feeling expressed was that it 
would certainly pass at the next session and that the best 
course for Pennsylvania to take — or all the colonies, for 
that matter, was to call their Assemblies and vote it before 
Parliament did, so that when it came it would be by their 
consent, and so avoid a precedent for taxation from without. 
This situation, therefore, had entered into the fierce cam- 
paign caused by the able and acrid controversy of Law- 
yers Dickinson and Galloway on the proposed transfer of 
the colony to the Crown and divided attention, thus really 
aiding the reaction against the Galloway-Franklin proposal 
led by Mr. Dickinson. On September 18th the Assembly 
ordered Agent Jackson to take vigorous measures against 
the proposed stamp duties. 

The campaign for the October elections was therefore 
on the issue of this proposed revolution. The public dis- 
cussions revealed one most significant thing, namely, that 
the struggles of the last eighty or more years between people 
and proprietary had resulted in placing the constitution of 
1701, with the laws enacted in support of it, above the pro- 
vincial charter of 1681 on which the earlier fathers had 
hung all their liberties ! The great Pennsylvania constitu- 
tion won by David Lloyd and the laws supporting or ex- 
pressing it, had, like the agreements of 1688 in England 
and laws supporting them, gone far beyond their great pre- 
ceding instruments of fundamental constitution. In this 
campaign of 1764 no one harked back to the Charter of 
1681, for while that gave the Proprietor all executive power, 
all judicial power except juries and half of the legislative 
power, the Lloyd constitution of 1701 and its supporting 
laws and precedents now practically stripped the Proprie- 
tary and their agents of most of the executive powers, 
nearly all of the judicial powers and a great proportion 
of their half of the powers of legislation. It was a sen- 
sational proposal therefore to endanger that constitution by 
a surrender of the colony's charter to the Crown and open 



54 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

the question of the Crown's acceptance of this almost repub- 
Hcan constitution of Pennsylvania. One writer, in the May 
26th (1764) issue of the Pennsylvama Journal attempted 
to show that the Crown could not but accept the provincial 
constitution of 1701, and its supporting laws, for all of 
them had received royal approbation at one time and an- 
other, and that the only result would be a royal instead of 
Proprietary executive. But the people became apprehensive 
under Mr. Dickinson's leadership and made public avowal 
of their approval of the lone triumvirate, Dickinson, San- 
ders and Montgomery who had protested. "The Constitu- 
tion of Pennsylvania," said the Lancaster people on August 
10th to Mr. Sanders, "has for near a century been the boast 
and glory of our fathers and of us. We cannot therefore 
conceive that the Freemen of this province ever empowered 
or gave it in charge to any of their delegates to now frame 
and model this constitution, or, by any conduct and consent 
of theirs, risk an alteration — but to maintain and defend it 
in its present great rights and privileges." On September 
27th, the Journal issued a whole broadside supplement by a 
vigorous writer who said : "Rouse then, Countrymen, and 
crush this base faction, before it is able to crush you. A 
set of men are proposed to you, for this city and country, 
who have never conspired to sell your rights ; who will bring 
no personal animosities with themi to your public afifairs ; 
who are of unblemished reputation, independent in their 
fortune, and not desiring to enrich themselves by impover- 
ishing you. The gentlemen are as follows : For the county, 
Messrs. Norris, Richardson, Dickinson, Stritell, Kippele, 
Antes, Harrison and Pawlings. For the city, Messrs. Wil- 
ling and Bryan. The three gentlemjen at the head of this 
ticket were former members, and steadfastly opposed the 
attempt to change our government. Mr. Dickinson in par- 
ticular acquitted himself with singular spirit on that oc- 
casion, and though for that reason the present faction 
leaves him out of their ticket, as unfit for their purposes, 
yet nine-tenths of his constituents applaud him for having 
done his duty, and are too just not to show him their regard 
accordingly. Among the new members for the county are 



MR. BRYAN DEFEATS EDITOR FRANKLIN 55 

two Germans of honor and reputation, proposed by their 
own countrymen, who have thought themselves too long 
denied the equal privilege of having some of their own 
people among their representatives in this capital county. 
For the city, two gentlemen are proposed of the fairest 
character, largely concerned in our trade, and particularly 
acquainted with it in all its branches.^ One of them has filled 
the important office of Mayor, with the highest credit and 
most unwearied application ; and the other, in sundry trusts 
committed to him by his country, has shown himself to be a 
man of eminent abilities and great integrity.- On such 
and so wide a foundation is this ticket laid ; and though 
it has been industriously said that the Presbyterians were 
aiming at all power in it, yet so far is this from being true, 
that, of the ten members for this city and county, only one 
is of the Presbyterian denomination, and he not proposed 
by their own body. Nor do we find more of this denomi- 
nation than usual in the tickets for the other counties. So 
moderate have they appeared, that though they are well en- 
titled to their proportionate share of representatives, they 
have constantly declared that it is indifferent to them of 
which persuasion the new memibers are, provided the pres- 
ent betrayers of our rights are turned out. As for you, 
countrymen, you must expect many false stories propa- 
gated as usual, on occasions of this kind. But be you pre- 
pared to regard matters of known fact, and to see with 
your own eyes and hear with your own ears !" 

The result of the election, published in the Journal for 
October 4th, showed that there had been a political revolu- 
tion, but also that it was largely confined to Philadelphia, 
for while all but two of the anti-Galloway-Franklin ticket 
were elected there, but five others in the rest of the state, 

^ Advertisements of Mr. Bryan's at this period, in the Journal, said: 
"To be sold by George Bryan: Cables and hawsers, also shroiid hawsers and 
smaller cordage made of the best hemp, ravens duck, drillings, Russia plain 
linens, diapers, huckabacks, and netted linens for mosquito curtains, bar iron 
from the north of Europe, V'idonia, Fyall and Madeira wines all tit for use, 
also Liverpool salt and earthenware." In the George Bryan Papers at the 
Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a letter of May 10, 1765, from a Mr. 
Gardner of Nantucket, which shows how widespread Mr. Bryan's trade was. 

^ This refers partly to his service on the river and bay pier and public 
works commission, created by the act of 17th February, 1762, in which he was 
still pctive, and on which he was to report to the coming Assembly. See close 
of Chapter III. 



56 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

in sympathy with them, were returned : two, the whole 
delegation from Cumberland ; one, the whole delegation 
from Northampton; one, the half of the Lancaster delega- 
tion ; and one, the half of the York delegation — a total of 
only ten out of thirty-six. It was a very important revo- 
lution, however, in several respects, because it removed the 
majority's powerful leaders, Galloway and Franklin, and 
the metropolitan leadership; it also lined up Pliiladelphia, 
Cumberland and Northampton counties and half of Lan- 
caster and York, showing Chester and Bucks leading against 
the Proprietary, indicating a great Quaker cleavage against 
the Penns, who, it may be observed, had become Episco- 
palian. And, so far as active leadership was concerned, 
Mr. Willing succeeded Lawyer Galloway and Mr, Bryan 
succeeded Editor Franklin. 



CHAPTER V 

A 

Leader of the Assembly and Judge of Philadelphia 

Courts 
He Sees A New Political Element Arise 

1764 

With the gathering of the Assembly at the State House 
in October, it became evident that the practically one-third 
new opposition, while still a minority, was yet symptomatic 
of a very vigorous and growing reaction that must be reck- 
oned with. On the 17th Mr. Bryan was given the place of 
the defeated Anti-Proprietary leader. Editor, now generally 
called, on account of his new degree from Oxford and 
Edinburgh, Dr. Franklin, on the new Grievance Committee, 
and both I\Ir. Bryan and Mr. Willing were put on the new 
Committee on Instructions to the Assembly's agent in Lon- 
don concerning the new political menace there, the Sugar and 
Stamp Acts, now proposed, and which Chief Justice Allen 
had done so much to hold at bay, and who was now a mem- 
ber of this body as a delegate selected by Cumberland 
county. 

The new instructions, in whose making Mr. Bryan had 
a share, were devoted mostly to the new menace in all its 
forms, the text showing that there were many forms it 
was taking, notably in forbidding direct trade with Ireland, 
Europe and the West Indies, which latter would make it 
impossible for the colony to pay its near £500,000 debt to 
the mother country, which such trade balances as were rep- 
resented by £700,000 imports from, to £300,000 exports to 
Great Britain easily explained. They warned the British 
that interference with the colony's control over its own 
money was something no Parliament could possibly think 
right. 

57 



58 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

There was unanimity on this point, and it was ordered 
forward to Agent Jackson, but when they turned to the 
previous Assembly's instructions about a change to royal 
government, a very positive lineup was evident, with the 
ten partizans of the old constitution solidly against the Anti- 
Proprietary majority, which latter included four of the 
metropolitan delegates. Speaker Norris was the comipro- 
miser, who practically lined up with the Dickinson-Bryan- 
Allen party, and insisted that, while the instructions need 
not be recalled the Agent must not do anything that would 
affect the old constitution that was so treasured by the 
people of Pennsylvania. Even this was opposed by twelve, 
the minority now being one-third. Speaker Norris resigned 
the next day, however, and the majority elected Joseph Fox, 
Speaker. Then, on the 24th of October, the Dickinson- 
Bryan minority tried to prevent action on a proposal again 
to send Dr. Franklin as Chief Agent at London, but lost it. 
and on the 26th he was chosen by 19 to 11 and ordered to 
embark. Mr. Richardson led the majority and Mr. Bryan 
the minority. 

Thereupon the minority issued a public statement of 
their position, under the title a Protest, which was published 
on November 1st, in Bradford's Jounial. It was signed by 
Messrs. Dickinson, McConaughy, John Montgomery, Isaac 
Saunders, George Taylor, William Allen, Thomas "Willing, 
George Bryan, Amos Strettill and Henry Keppele. They 
object to Dr. Franklin on several grounds: 1. because he 
is deemed the chief author of the scheme; 2. that the peti- 
tion designed by most, only to bring the Proprietary to terms 
on taxation of estates — in which respect it was successful 
they understand — Dr. Franklin would force it to actual 
separation and danger to the whole old constitution so 
prized by the people ; 3. because it is understood he is per- 
sona nan grata to the Ministry; 4. because his rejection at 
the last election shows how thoroughly people are against 
him; 5. because of the unseemly haste in choosing him; 6. 
because his last visit, including a loss of £6000 caused by 
his placing of provincial funds unsafely, cost the unreason- 
able sum of £11,000; and 7thly, they propose Dr. Fother- 



.^- -^ :^^ 





Thomas Willing and George Bryan 

who defeated Joseph Galloway and Benjamin Franklin 

for Asseinblv in 1764 



IN THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS 59 

gill, a London resident, and offer individually to pay the 
cost of the mission, if the agent is restrained until an ex- 
press order is given him to proceed. 

On November 22d Dr. Franklin replies to them, tartly : 
the cause was not he, but the Proprietary action ; he was 
more loyal to the Crown than to the Proprietary, and he 
seems to level most of what he says at Chief Justice Allen, 
who, he says, describing but not naming him, had to get 
chosen from a frontier county to be chosen at all, while 
he, himself [Franklin], had been re-elected for fourteen 
years from Philadelphia ; and he tells the Philadelphia dele- 
gation that they only won by the small margin of about a 
score in near 4000 votes. He waxes wrathful and refers 
to "religious bigots, who are of all savages the most brutish." 
He grows satirical over the final consent of the Penns to 
this taxation — "restitution," he terms it — and notes that it 
was not made public, although brought over by Mr. Allen 
in September, until a threat to send himself over again as 
Agent. He calls these gentlemen, protestants, "minions" of 
the Proprietary, having in mind apparently Chief Justice 
Allen and his relatives more than anyone else, to whom he 
ascribes whatever unfavorable attitude of the Ministry there 
might be. Then he tackles the Chief Justice, Justices and 
lawyers who libel him by omitting to tell that the Assembly 
had ordered it and themselves lost by panic. He tells the 
Chief Justice that Jw was there in the House and audited 
his accounts — "you," he says "my enemy for seven years." 
He adds that he had no salary in those six years and paid 
his own personal expenses, and it was the Chief Justice who 
proposed the £5000 compensation ! He is now to take leave 
of his country, possibly his last leave, and "I forgive my 
enemies." 

A reply was made to this by one who is so evidently Mr. 
Dickinson that it is immaterial that he did not sign it. 
Among other things he shows that the city delegates, Bryan 
and Willing, who displaced Dr. Franklin were returned by 
"a great majority," and that was the significant thing; that 
Mr. Allen was re-elected for nine successive years, but re- 
signed and declined thereafter; that, among other things 



60 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

replied to, the religious "bigots" were the Presbyterians, 
whom Dr. FrankHn and his Quaker supporters thought they 
were doing a great favor in "permitting" "to spill our own 
blood and spend our own money, in the public cause." He 
asserts that the "ten gentlemen who signed the Protest are 
known to be persons of the fairest character and men of 
fortune, absolutely independent of the Proprietary family, 
holding no places under them, soliciting none, nor even 
likely to accept of any" — except the Chief Justice, whose 
trifling salary is from the Assembly itself, and who got 
Dr. Franklin his position as "Joint-Postmaster" General of 
America. 

While these epistolary contests were on during this 
month of November, 1764, after the organization of the 
new Assembly, Governor John Penn reorganized the ju- 
diciary of the counties, new commissions to a number of 
gentlemen of high standing as Justices or Judges of the 
various courts. Because the court business was continually 
growing and would take too much time of any one or more 
leading citizens to sit continuously, and because the judges 
were not professional lawyers, and also were commissioned 
to sit in whatever court needed them most, as common pleas, 
quarter sessions, or orphans' court, sixteen members of the 
executive Council were given commissions, so certain of 
them might be on both the Council and the Philadelphia 
courts, serving as was deemed advisable, and twenty-two 
other gentlemen, for like reasons, were commissioned for 
the judiciary alone, the chances always being, as in the case 
of big committees, that a comparatively few would do all 
the work, and that, too, on all of the various benches. An 
examination of the two lists. Council and judiciary and 
judiciary alone, show them almost wholly of the Anti- 
Franklin element, the Council most strikingly so, and the 
judiciary proper scarcely less so, and including even the 
tmsuccessful candidates of the Anti-Franklin party, like 
Judge Frederick Antis. Amongst the twenty-two judiciary 
commissions for the capital county, were George Bryan, 
John and Thomas Lawrence, Thomas Willing, Jacob Duche, 
William Coxe, Samuel Shoemaker, William Humphreys, 



IN THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS 61 

James Biddle, Peter Evans, Henry Harrison, William De- 
wees, and others, whose commissions were ordered on No- 
vember 19th. ^ With so large a number a fair sized bench 
for any of the several courts at any particular time was al- 
most a certainty, while at the same time certain men would 
prove more suitable, not only from greater legal learning, 
but from efficiency and personal inclination and adaptability. 
Furthermore the executive Council, or personal advisers, 
who, by the conservative element, were looked upon as the 
real guides of the province, could always have supervision 
of the courts by having some Councillor Judge preside, or, 
if desirable, form a large part, even a majority of a particu- 
lar court session. The Councillor Judges thus became a 
species of judicial-executive "inter-locking directorate." It 
was for this reason, among others, that the Assembly, under 
Franklin, had tried to get the judicial commissions changed 
from "pleasure" to "good behavior," through a law to that 
effect. 

The courts were all held at the Court House of 1709 at 
Second Street, in the middle of Market Street and facing 
eastward on Second. Here were held the Common Pleas, 
the Quarter Sessions and Orphans' Courts b)^ the various 
gentlemen, as has been said, the sessions of the various 
courts to be non-conflicting as far as possible, so far as a 
given Judge was concerned.^ The records of some of these 
courts are so rare in some cases and so defective, for his- 
torical purposes, in others, that only those of the Orphans' 
Court are continuous and serviceable for this period. The 
first sitting of this bench, after the new commissions were 
issued on November 19th, was on December 8th, when 
there appeared, naming them in the order of their name's 
appearance in the executive list. Judges William Plumsted 
and Samuel Mifflin, Councillor Judges, and Judges Isaac 

1 An interesting advertisement of Judge Bryan's appeared during these 
months in Bradford's Journal: "September 6rh, just arrived is the snow 
William, Captain Nixon, from Ireland, some likely Seri'ants, men and women, 
boys and girls, whose times are to be disposed of by the said Captain Nitcon 
on his vessel at anchor off Market Street, or by George Bryan at his store in 
Water Street, next door to the Honorable William Allen, Esq. A parcel of 
choice Waterford pork to be sold by George Bryan." 

^ Orphans' Court Docket, No. 7, p. 124. Of course, Quarter Sessions 
Courts were by special colmmission and were only held by Supreme Court 
Justices. 



62 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Jones, James Coultas, John Lawrence, and George Bryan. 
At the niext session, nine days later, on the 17th, Judge 
Coultas was absent, and Judges Samuel Shoemaker and 
Jacob Hall were additional members. No other session of 
this court was held there until the following spring, 9th 
March, 1765, when the court consisted of Judges Jacob 
Duche, Jones, Shoemaker, Lawrence and Bryan ; and on 
the 18th the same bench was present except that Judge 
Lawrence's place was taken by Judge Samuel Ashmead. 
These last two sessions had no Councillor Judges, and Judge 
Bryan was not present at the next three spring sessions, 
doubtless because of his activity in the Assembly over at 
Chestnut and Fifth at the Province or State House, to which 
attention may now be turned.^ 

At the January session of the Assembly, Judge Bryan 
was impressed into still more committee service — that on 
erecting a poor-house for Philadelphia on January 10th ; on 
the case of a prisoner for debt, on the 12th ; on a new elec- 
tion law on February 1st; one on regulating immigration 
from Holland and Germany, on the 6th ; on regulating the 
bread assizes on the 7th ; on the highway committee on May 
15th, and on one on prisons on the 17th. He was therefore 
so occupied with Assembly affairs that he was unable to 
serve on the bench until June 17th, and only then, because of 
developments of the new element that was to materially 
change the whole political situation. At this June 17th ses- 



' In order to have same conception of this provincial capitol, which was 
developing during those years, the following facts may serve: £200 was voted 
for finishing the state house on May 19, 1739; Carpenters Wooley and Tom- 
linson ask that the work be measured on 31st July, 1740; an account of the 
condition on June 5, 1741, showed carpenter work done, but not the windows; 
on May 4, 1743, ihe west end room was ordered completed as soon as possible; 
on November 29ili of the same year a plan for tinishiuj!; the court room (west 
room for Supreme Court) and the "piazzas" l)etweeii tlie main huil.iiiv^ and 
the office buildings w;!S approved and in 1744 chimney hicks were delivered; 
the Assembly room (east), opening to the hall and Supreme Court room 
through a double row of arches, was so afJlicied with echo, that it was ordered 
corrected on February 5, 17!6; on January 27, 1749, a tower for staircase and 
bell at south side was ordered; the Supreme (^ourt records were placed in 
the west office building for first time on October 20, 1750, and on October 16th 
of following year a new bell was ordered in (ireat Britain; at southeast corner, 
a room was ordered bviilt on, for Assembly committees on 19th February, 1752; 
and on March 11th a clock to strike on the bell was ordered. August 13, 1754, 
the Assembly ordered the old bell to be kept and the new one paid for; 1762, 
Jan. 13th, clock was ordered repaired by Duffield, and during year all lo'ta of 
square ordered bought; 22nd October, 1763, square "behind" the State Hovise 
was ordered laid out with walks and trees; 1766, May 9th, committee ordered 
to report on lot purchases. This was the condition when Judge Bryan entered 
the Assembly. 







eB««^Wv W.M.1 



TuK Court House, Second and Market Streets 

in which Judge Bryan presided from 1764 

From an old drawing in the Philadelpliia Library 



IN THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS 63 

sion [1764] Judges Samuel Mifflin, Duche, Jones, Lawrence 
and Bryan were present. 

This new political element was an imperial one, growing 
out of the close of the long period of war in 1763 and the 
necessity of a new organization for a greatly increased 
colonial empire and of provision for the great war debt. 
The American colonies had grown lustily and with the new 
freedom; in the back country of the Mississippi and Ohio 
valleys they were to grow still more, so that, as they had 
been exploited in the past so that they were kept heavily in 
debt to the mother country, and the people's antagonism to 
the Proprietary governments had suggested a uniform pro- 
vision for making all colonies royal provinces, the re-organ- 
izers in the Ministry proposed various new aggressive 
measures for the colonies, among them being the Sugar 
and Stamp acts, the chief characteristics of which were a 
mode of securing money from the colonies without their 
consent, and through Parliamentary power.^ 

Imagine a province that had been fighting as Pennsylvania 
had been for the old constitution and its supporting laws, 
which had all but made a purely republican condition, and 
that, too, so fully that they had been fighting, more recently, 
to clean out special privilege from one dark corner of it, 
namely, exemption of Proprietary estates from taxation ; 
and then let them see on the horizon an attempt of someone 
from the outside to impose taxation on them! To them it 
would instantly appear astounding, amazing, unbelievable, 
and, what is more, they would instantlv impale the particu- 
lar offender. Parliament, without hesitation, and be aflame 
for preventive measures. The Stamp tax machinery, also, 
furnished an excellent definite object of immediate attack 
and also suggested a further mode of retaliation by boycott 
of British imports. The intensity of this new upheaval 
relegated the old Anti-Proprietary contest to so subordinate 
a place that it was practically suspended, and so tended to 
restore the old order, and make the ills under the Proprie- 

^See Life and iVritings of James Wilson, by Burton Alva Konkle, for more 
detailed treatment of these and similar imperial questions. Judge Bryan's career 
was so pre-eminently a state, rather than an imperial or national one, that 
these subjects are less pertinent to the narrative of it. 



64 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

tary seem small indeed. It therefore served to dissipate the 
old division to a large extent, and yet not allay the fears of 
Dr. Franklin's reputed designs of independence, or, at least 
comparative indifference to the old constitution of 1701. In 
fact, the new menace of the Stamp Act became, to the whole 
province, an attack on their old constitution, which had long 
since come to replace, in the minds of Pennsylvanians, the 
charter of 1681 to the Founder, and to be the real basis of 
their liberties. This was a most curious and interesting 
phenomenon, for it revealed how remarkably far the colony 
had travelled from the basis on which they had rested in the 
time of the Stuart Kings and William Penn. Then they 
had reverted much to the founding charter of 1681, but 
now it was never mentioned or apparently ever thought of ; 
now it was their own constitution of 1701 and its support- 
ing laws on which they rested and so confidently that they 
never seemed to conceive of it as a secondary charter, as 
it technically was, although, by the mysterious processes of 
that curious thing, British custom, and the passage of time, 
the constitution of 1701 was in reality an established funda- 
mental that no power but the people themselves could change. 
Therefore, the new menace of the Stamp Act was a 
menace of one legislature against another and the constitu- 
tion on which it rested. Some excellent papers in defense 
appeared after news of the passage of the act began to 
appear in the late spring of 1765, although, as has been seen, 
they were forewarned of it and expected it. One of the 
most thoughtful of these papers was a most conciliatory, 
but firm paper by "Freeman," in Bradford's Journal, in 
June. In the issue of June 20th, he says that a representa- 
tive can only be one by being chosen to be one. If not, 
then the Assembly of Pennsylvania can assume to represent 
anyone in Great Britain. "The laws passed in the colonies, 
after obtaining royal assent, are of equal force with acts of 
Parliament; so that we have as really a legislative power, 
as the people in England ; and therefore, if we were to make 
acts of Assembly to levy taxes upon the people of England, 
and obtain royal assent to them, can any man tell why those 
acts should not be as binding upon the people of England, 



IN THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS 65 

as their acts upon us?" He also says "if we had power to 
impose taxes upon them by force, as they now have upon 
us — and such a time may possibly come in future ages, as 
the English dominions in America are much more extensive 
than in Europe, they will in a few ages be much more 
populous, and may become more powerful; and if the King 
should pass an act made in the colonies, for taxing the 
people in Great Britain, could they make any objection to 
it, but what is equally strong against their taxing the 
colonies? but the violation of the English constitution is 
manifest in both cases." He says that their claim that this 
province is represented as much as many towns, corpora- 
tions, etc., are in England merely proves that some in Eng- 
land are willing to go unrepresented, while Pennsylvanians 
are not willing. He says this is "a land of liberty (for so it 
was our glory to call it)." He then shows, however, that 
these towns are not similarly situated, because the county in 
which they stand are represented, and persons in them have 
similar interests. In the issue of the 27th, he takes up the 
charge of designed independence, and shows that no part 
of the empire is "dependent" on any other part ; they have a 
reciprocal dependence, but do not derive rights from one 
another. "If" said he, "the independency which the colonies 
are supposed to aim at, means nothing more than that they 
claim the same natural rights of liberty and property as 
their countrymen in England, it is very certain such is their 
claim." 

This paper is a good illustration of the attitude of the 
most thoughtful minds in Pennsylvania in June, 1765, when 
the House of Representatives of Massachusetts sent out 
invitations to the various Legislatures of the provinces to 
join them in meeting at New York, on the first Tuesday 
in October following, namely, on the 1st of that month. 
Speaker Fox had replied to it in recess on June 27th and 
during the summer, when it became evident that measures 
were actually in progress for sending the detested stamps 
over and to put them in operation on the first day of Novem- 
ber, the Assembly met on September 10th and at once voted 
to send delegates to the American "Congress" and appointed 



66 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

a committee headed by Mr. Dickinson, Judge Bryan and 
Mr. John Morton, with five others, all notably the leaders 
of the Anti-Franklin minority, to prepare instructions. The 
following day the three gentlemen above mentioned were 
promptly chosen delegates to this first American "Congress," 
as they called it, a significant tribute from the majority, and 
possibly a shrewd political miove to get these able leaders of 
the aggressive minority out of the province in time for the 
October election. Immediately thereafter they adopted the 
instructions these same gentlemen had reported, which 
directed that they should co-operate in addresses of a most 
respectful character to the king, Lords and Commons, im- 
ploring relief from the objectionable acts ; and to report the 
results back to the House. 

The public feeling increased and plans of resistance were 
vigorously forwarded, when, just five days after the appoint- 
ment of Messrs. Dickinson, Bryan, Morton and Speaker 
Fox, a ray of hope appeared in the arrival of news on Sun- 
day morning, September 15th, of a change in the British 
Ministry. "A general joy diffused itself through the whole 
city," says the Journal of Philadelphia, in the issue of the 
19th. "On Monday morning the bells began and continued 
ringing all day ; in the evening many loyal healths were 
drank, bonfires illuminated the city, and every lover of 
liberty gave all possible demonstrations of joy." 

The Assembly was very busy closing up its work for the 
year previous to the election due on the 1st of October. The 
next day after the above announcement, namely September 
20th, Judge Bryan presented the River and Pier Commis- 
sion's report of operations during the last three years and 
on the 21st, as chairman of the Committee on Grievances, 
he also presented their report, followed by that on the Public 
Accounts, of which he was also a member. Thereupon they 
adjourned, prepared for the advent of a newly elected body 
on October 1st. 

Five days later, on Thursday, the 26th, Messrs. Dickin- 
son and Morton started for New York and on the following 
Saturday, the 28th, Judge Bryan followed them. He was 
therefore in New York the following Tuesday when the 



IN THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS 67 

Congress opened, and while he was there on that day the 
annual election was being held in Philadelphia, some features 
of which deserve attention before considering the proceed- 
ings of the "Congress." These were the natural ir^en for 
the Assembly to send, even if they were in the minority, for 
Mr. Dickinson was showing ability as a great unselfish 
publicist of high character and learning and Judge Bryan 
was no less high-minded and a recognized leader of the back 
counties and the non-Quaker element in Philadelphia, while 
Mr. Alorton of Chester was a man of broad and liberal 
mind. The Franklin party, however, utilized the absence of 
these men and the hope in the new Ministry to put in a hard 
campaign to replace the two aggressive minority leaders, 
Dickinson and Bryan, the one by his antagonist. Lawyer 
Galloway, and the other by one of the two chief Quaker 
leaders, the Pembertons, one of whom was known as the 
"King of the Quakers," and the other, James Pemberton, 
scarcely less influential. The result was that Lawyer Gallo- 
way easily displaced Mr. Dickinson, but when the votes were 
counted for the Presbyterian, Judge Bryan, and the Quaker, 
James Pemberton, the unique and anomalous result was a 
tie, the only occurrence of the kind in the history of the 
colony; for it was not a contested election, as both votes 
were recognized as correct, and, unfortunately, equal, so 
that neither were chosen. A new election was ordered and 
held while Judge Bryan was in New York and the Franklin- 
Quaker Anti-Proprietary element, which had carried the 
Assembly overwhelmingly, found no difficulty in making 
the Quakers' vote pass that of the Presbyterian. So that 
Judge George Bryan, in the new American "Congress' at 
New York, chosen as one of the two Philadelphia Assem- 
blymen, was now, like Mr. Dickinson, no longer an Assem- 
blyman, but the first Pennsylvania and metropolitan mem- 
bers of the first American "Congress," more commonly 
known as "The Stamp Act Congress." 

This gathering was by no means unanimously approved 
and there were many conflicting ideas as to just what it was 
to do or ought to do. Governor Cadwalader Colden, down 
at the Battery in New York, considered it almost treasonable 



68 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

and he would have nothing to do with it ; while, as the New 
York Assemibly was not meeting, only their committee of 
Correspondence could come in unofficially. Consequently 
the meeting had to be held in the City Hall (or "City House," 
as it is called on a contemporary map) at the head of Broad 
Street, now the site of the Custom House. Curiously 
enough the first of the delegations to arrive was that from 
far off South Carolina. In the choice of these representa- 
tives, the Carolinian Assembly afforded as many ideas of 
what the proposed "Congress" might be as similar bodies 
elsewhere. One wag asked "what kind of a dish it would 
make ? New England will throw in fish and onions ; the 
Middle States flax-seed and flour ; Maryland and Virginia 
will add tobacco ; North Carolina, pitch, tar and turpen- 
tine ; South Carolina, rice and indigo ; and Georgia will 
sprinkle the whole composition with saw dust. Such an 
absurd jumble will you make, if you attempt to form a 
union among such discordant materials as the thirteen 
British provinces." To which a member replied objecting 
to the wag as a cook, but expressing confidence that a 
wise "Continental Congress" could prepare a dish fit for 
any Crown in Europe. All week informal conferences 
were held at the head of Broad Street awaiting a quorum. 
The royal governors of Virginia and North Carolina pre- 
vented their Assemblies from sending delegates and 
Georgia's royal executive enjoined them not to do so, while 
New Hampshire was also constrained not to co-operate, 
but on Monday, the 7th, nine of the thirteen colonies formed 
a quorum at the City Hall and, while most provinces had 
three delegates each, the two smallest, namely Rhode Island 
and what is now Delaware (then "The Three Lower Coun- 
ties" looked upon as an appendix to the Quaker province) 
had but two, and only New York exceeded the usual num- 
ber in having five members — a total of twenty-seven mem- 
bers. 

They were for the most part quite as prominent in their 
own provinces as Dickinson, Bryan and Morton were in 
Pennsylvania, and many came to be famous later on — Otis, 
Dyer and Johnson, Cruger and the Livingstons, Rodney and 




City House, New York 

where the Stamp Act Congress met in 1765 

From an old print in Lamb's History 



IN THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS 69 

McKean, Tilghman, Rutledge, and others. In Ruggles' 
close election as chairman, the compliment of presiding 
officer was given to the province which proposed the "Con- 
gress." For two weeks these delegates, nearly all of whom 
were limited in their powers somewhat as the Pennsylvanians 
were, worked over a draft of resolutions in secret, from 
drafts said to have been made by both Cruger and Dickin- 
son, but, as is usual in such struggles of compromise the 
final result reported and adopted on Saturday the 19th, was 
the work of many hands, probably Dickinson's chiefly. This 
acknowledged: 1. Allegiance to the Crown and "due sub- 
ordination" to Parliament ; 2. Claimed all rights of British 
subjects; 3. Avowed no taxes could be imposed without 
their consent; 4. They cannot consent in Parliament; 5. 
That their organ of consent is their own provincial legisla- 
tures ; 6. That people of Great Britain cannot grant provin- 
cial property; 7. That trial by jury is an inherent right; 8. 
That the Stamp and other acts subvert rights and liberties ; 
9. That the payment of the duties are absolutely impractica- 
ble ; 10. That compulsory trade with Great Britain is a source 
of wealth to the government there; 11. That the late restric- 
tions will ruin this ; 12. That only freedom and rights will 
produce mutual prosperity ; 13. That petition is a right ; 
and 14. That it is the duty of these provinces to call for the 
repeal of these objectionable acts. 

Three committees were then set to work on as many ad- 
dresses to Crown, Lords and Commons and they were 
adopted on Monday, the 21st, but they were not signed by 
all. For example, the address to the King as well as the 
rest was signed by but six of the provinces, omitting Con- 
necticut, New York and South Carolina. It is an interesting 
fact, and significant, that this was a petition, not from 
colonies, but from the people or "freeholders and other in- 
habitants" of them. The same was true of the "memorial" 
— not petition — to the Lords, to whom they again adknowl- 
edged "due subordination," but insist on their own legisla- 
tive rights and judicial privileges, the latter of which is in- 
fringed by the late Vice-Admiralty Court Acts, and ask 
redress. The address to the Commjons, however, was a 



70 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

petition and more at length pointed out these new violations 
of the British constitution, discriminating between general 
imperial acts of regulation and acts that tax or that affect 
jury trials. On October 24th, it was decided that these 
addresses should be handled by special agents to be ap- 
pointed or already designated by the several colonies, after 
which they adjourned. They had been in session nearly 
three weeks and, as Mr. Dickinson had been called home 
on urgent personal afifairs during the second week, before 
the addresses were finished, Judge Bryan and Mr. Morton 
acted for Pennsylvania in approving these three documents, 
and voted them sent forward to Great Britain. The three 
colonies that declined to sign did so merely because they 
conceived that their legislatures' instructions required sub- 
mission to them first. Georgia and New Hampshire, while 
unable to take part, approved and asked that copies might 
be sent themi to forward on their own account. 

A very luminous account of the Congress has been left 
by Caesar Rodney, in a letter of October 20th, four days 
before adjournment: "When I wrote you last," he writes, 
*T expected the Congress would have ended in eight or ten 
days from that time, but contrary to expectation, we have 
not yet finished. You and many others, perhaps, are sur- 
prised to think we should sit so long when the business of 
our meeting seemed only to be the petitioning the King and 
remonstrating to both Houses of Parliament. But when 
you consider that we are petitioning and addressing that 
august body the great legislative of the empire for redress 
of grievances; that, in order to point out the grievances it 
was likewise necessary to set forth the liberty we have and 
ought to enjoy (as freeborn Englishmen) according to the 
British constitution, this we set about to do by way of 
declaration, in the nature of resolves, as a foundation for 
the petition and addresses, and [it] was one of the most dif- 
ficult tasks I [have] ever yet see[n] undertaken, as we had 
carefully to avoid any infringement of the prerogative of 
the Crown and the power of Parliament, and yet, in duty 
bound, to assert the rights and privileges of the colonies. 
However, after arguing and debating two weeks on liberty, 



IN THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS 71 

privilege, prerogative, &c., in an assembly of the greatest 
ability I ever yet saw, we happily finished them, and now 
have the petition and addresses before us, which we expect 
to finish in three or four days more at farthest."^ 

The Congress closed as he predicted, and Judge Bryan 
then prepared the report of Mr. Morton and himself, as, 
under the circumstances, they practically, became the Penn- 
sylvania delegation, and signed all the addresses (since 
Mr. Dickinson had no part in them;) to Crown, Lords and 
Commons, which were the real appeal to Great Britain, the 
general "fourteen declarations" in whose preparation the 
absent member had an important part, being for home con- 
sumption alone or reference.^ The report follows : "The 
Report of John Morton and George Bryan, fzvo of the Com- 
mittee appointed by the late Assembly to meet the Com- 
mittees of the other British Colo)iies on the Continent, on 
the first Tuesday in October last, for the Purposes mentioned 
in a letter from the Speaker of the Proznnce of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay to the Speaker of the late Assembly: 

"That, in compliance with the appointment of the late 
Assembly, and accompanied by John Dickinson, Esq., they, 
the said Mr. Morton and Mr. Bryan, proceeded to New 
York, and on Monday, the seventh of October, entered upon 
the business they were sent about, the Congress being then 
and there formed of Committees from the Massachusetts 
Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecti- 
cut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Government 
of the Counties of New Castle, Kent and Sussex upon Dela- 
ware, Maryland and South Carolina. 

"That the said Congress agreed to Fourteen Declarations 
of their humble opinion, respecting the most essential rights 
and liberties of the colonists, and of the grievances under 
which they do, and must labor, by reason of several late acts 
of Parliament ; upon which Declarations they founded a 
petition to his Majesty, a memorial to the Right Honorable 

^ Letter to Thomas Rodney; in possession of Stan. V. Henkels, Phila- 
delphia. 

^ For the addresses with the signatures of Mr. Bryan and Mr. Morton, 
see Votes of Assembly of 4th January, 1776, where they sign as the "Committee 
from Pennsylvania," so that Mr. Dickinson's name does not appear on any of 
the addresses of the Stamp Act Congress. 



72 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

House of Lords, and a petition to the Honorable the House 
of Commons of Great Britain, in order to obtain rehef. 

"That engrossed copies of those several addresses were 
signed by six of the aforesaid Committees and transmitted 
to Great Britain ; and other engrossed copies thereof given 
to each of the Committees, to lay before their respective 
Assemblies, — a set of which, properly signed, together with 
a copy of the Minutes of their proceedings, are herewith 
laid before the House. 

"That the Committees of the Provinces of Connecticut, 
New York and South Carolina did not think themselves 
impowered to sign the engrossed copies, till they had been 
laid before their Assemblies. 

"That the Provinces of Georgia and New Hampshire 
sent no deputies, for which their reasons, transmitted to the 
Congress, appear in these minutes : however, they declare 
they approve of the measure taken and were ready to join 
in a united address for relief, and accordingly engrossed 
copies of the applications to the King, Lords and Commons 
were sent to them. 

"That the provinces of Virginia and North Carolina, the 
Congress did not hear from, but engrossed copies of the 
petitions, &c., and a copy of the Minutes of the Congress 
were likewise sent to them ; and their concurrence in this 
great and common cause of all the colonies was not doubted 
of, should their Assemblies have an opportunity of meeting. 

"That before the addresses were finished, Mr. Dickinson 
was called home by urgent business, and the several copies 
were signed by the Reporters only, which they submitted to 
the consideration of the House. "^ 

As the Assembly of Pennsylvania was not in session 
this report was temporarily held by Mr. Morton, who, as 
still a member of Assembly, was to read it at the next 
session. While Judge Bryan and Mr. Morton prepared for 
return to Philadelphia there was, in New York, a newly 
arrived young Scotchman from Edinburgh of twenty-three 



^ 5 Votes of Assembly, 437. Judge Bryan, DiJckinson and Morton each 
received £25 for their service in the Stamp Act Congress on September 20, 
1766. 


















tp/t/rii'//^^} yze'nl /A'jf (''.>^i//'^^^i 






I 



A Page of The Memorial of The Stamp Act Congress of 1765 
to the House of Lords, in the Library of Congress 



IX THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS IZ 

years, named James Wilson, who was soon to follow them 
to the North American metropolis on the Delaware and 
prepare to rival them all in the public life of the American 
people. 

Judge Bryan found Philadelphia in a ferment over the 
appearance of vessels on the Delaware bearing Stamped 
paper and the people's course in compelling the vessels to 
return it. Still more excitement was abroad in his own line 
as an importing merchant, for some four hundred of them 
had become so aroused by the very next day after Judge 
Bryan and his fellow delegates adjourned and he returned 
to Philadelphia, that they signed a "Non-Importation Agree- 
ment," Judge Bryan's name appearing among the number. 
Three days later a meeting was called in New York and still 
later in Boston, so that Judge Bryan and his fellow mer- 
chants of the metropolis seem to have taken the initiative 
in this first great fight of resistance.^ This action spread 
from the metropolis on the Delaware all over the land. It 
is notable that in Judge Bryan's city these resolutions ex- 
pressly excepted Ireland from the boycott. The results 
were excellent and on the following January 7th, Mr. Mor- 
ton read the report in Assembly, which gave them a vote 
of thanks on the next day and provided payment for their 
services and expenses.' Three months later the objection- 
able Stamp Act was repealed and the two great movements 
of inter-colonial resistance, in which Judge Bryan was so 
prominent, were successful. The very success of the new 
wave of inter-provincial feeling and conviction that carried 
Judge Bryan and Air. Dickinson on its crest into the first 



^ Some historians mistaking publication date, for date of adoption have 
given New York first place; but the agreement itself in Philadelphia is of 
Friday, October 25, 1765, as the originals in the HistoricaJ Society of Penn- 
sylvania show. The meeting on November 7th was the first general meeting 
after all the signatures were secured to take necessary measures of organi- 
zation. The first meeting to adopt resolutions and appoint a committee to 
secure all signatures to it was on October 2Sth, however, so that Philadelphia 
took the initiative. 

^ The Schooner, Charming Nancy, Capt. John Mullowney, came into Phila- 
delphia on Friday, 13th December with stamped clearance papers for Halifax, 
and this led to rumors at the Coffee House that he had stamped paper aboard. 
A group of men sought him out and before Judge Bryan at the Coffee House 
had him give oath that he had none except the ones necessary to his own 
movements. [Journal of 19th Dec. 1765.] On the 28th of December, also Judge 
Bryan was called upon to take the oath of two captains who had brought 
Stamped Paper consignments and promised to not deliver them, and they 
actually surrendered them to a manrof-war in the harbor. 



74 BRYAN AXD PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Continental Congress as representatives of Pennsylvania, 
left them as private citizens when the tidal wave ebbed. It 
also left them in a new place of power, as recognized leaders 
of very high but different characters, Mr. Dickinson as the 
publicist and Judge Bryan as the leader of the Anti-Quaker 
forces in Philadelphia and especially in the new counties to 
the westward, who were vigilant for the liberties that were 
theirs under the old Lloydean constitution of 1701 and its 
supporting laws. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Subsiding Upheaval Causes a Union of Bryan and 

Proprietary Elements to Preserve the 

Constitution of 1701 

1766 

The intensity of the struggle in Pennsylvania and the 
other colonies during the winter season of October-April, 
1765-66, is rarely realized even among historical students. 
The noble work of the importing merchants in refusing to 
trade with Great Britain through the Non-Importation agree- 
ments was but one part of it, for the stamping of docu- 
mentary papers caused lawyers and all court officers to sus- 
pend all their processes, and newspapers refused to use 
them and, in some cases, suspended publication, embroider- 
ing their last issues in mourning for lost liberties and the 
freedom of the press. Courts, here and there over the 
colonies declared the Stamp Act "unconstitutional" and pro- 
ceeded on the basis of such decisions. Every colony began 
to encourage home manufactures, and appeals were made 
to the merchants and others in the mother-country to pre- 
vent further disaster to all concerned. The public examina- 
tion of Dr. Franklin and his bold and valiant defense of the 
colonists in Parliament served somewhat to reduce the oppo- 
sition to himi during the winter and spring, especially when 
in April the news reached America that the hated Stamp Act 
was repealed. The successful resistance of every secret 
effort, as well as public effort, to land stamps, in which the 
culprits were brought before Judge Bryan and forced to 
surrended their paper to war ships in the harbor and take 
oath not to try it again, gave even the British Admiralty 
realization that they were helpless before such an upheaval. 

This uprising and Dr. Franklin's part in it, as spokes- 
man in London, having caused the Anti-Franklin question 

75 



76 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

to fall somewhat into the hackground in October and so 
nearly restored the former political character of the Assem- 
bly, Lawyer Galloway came back as leader and when, on 
October 15, 1765, he secured a vote on Mr. Jackson as 
Agent, only Mv. Willing and two others voted in Opposi- 
tion, and on the following day, when the vote on Dr. Frank- 
lin as Joint-Agent was taken, only eight opposed it, and 
Lawyer Galloway was put on the Correspondence Com- 
mittee, and Mr. Willing took Mr. Bryan's places on most 
committees. The Bryan-Dickinson measures, however, were 
not fruitless, for the Agents in London were ordered to 
employ the utmost vigilance and caution in securing all 
charter rights, constitutional and legislative guarantees even 
ro get an order of Privy Council confirming the Act of IV 
Anne on election of Assemblymen. They were also 
ordered to co-operate with the Stamp Act Congress then in 
session at New York, of which the Anti-Franklin leaders, 
Mr. Dickinson and Judge Bryan, were Pennsylvania's repre- 
sentatives, although the various addresses of that Congress, 
when they appeared in London would show only the names 
of Mr. Bryan and Mr. Morton. The curious situation was 
therefore afforded of Agents Franklin and Jackson follow- 
ing the directions of Mr. Bryan, inter-colonially, and Mr. 
Galloway in the matter of a change from Proprietary to 
Royal government in his own province, but with the Bryan 
party's contentions included even in that. The January ses- 
sion, 1766, brought out Assembly's address to the Com- 
mons also partly on the subject of the Congress, but chiefly 
on the laws limiting issue of paper money, in which they 
showed that by present laws all paper would be sunk by 
1773 and that it was already causing a stringency that caused 
great suffering, especially because Pennsylvania paper was 
used to supply the deficiencies in both New Jersey and 
Maryland, who suffered from the same cause, the latter 
most seriously. 

A letter of November 9th, last, from Agent Jackson said 
the petition for a change of government had been presented 
and further instructions were requested. Counter petitions, 
doubtless from Governor and Council, as well as Proprie- 



PRESERVING THE OLD CONSTITUTION V 

tary were also presented, so that a letter published in Brad- 
ford's Journal of February 27, 1766, said they had been 
"read twice" before the King and Council, when it was put 
off sine die, which, to use the Lord President of the Coun- 
cil's own words, is for ever and for ever." "Thus," says the 
editor, "we hope we have got rid of this unhappy bone of 
contention, and that now peace, good will and brotherly 
love will take place." Agent Jackson's letter had in a diplo- 
matic way indicated that the matter could be dropped now 
if they wished, but the Assembly had no notion of dropping 
it. but, on the contrary wished it pushed, but with pro- 
visions indicated. It had become plain, however, that the 
British infatuation with their new theory of colonial consti- 
tution and their tenacity in adhering to it raised serious 
questions as to the relative importance of this and the Anti- 
Proprietary proposals, for, in the recent upheaval, the As- 
semblies in the Royal provinces had, as a rule, fared much 
worse than in the Proprietary ones. The persistence of the 
Franklin-Quaker party was, therefore, probably of the 
nature of a club to hold over the heads of the Penn family. 
Dr. Franklin, however, was taking measures to reassure the 
Bryan-Dickinson party by getting a report on certain laws, 
including the vital one to the constitution of 1701, the Lloyd 
law "An Act to Ascertain the Number of Members of As- 
sembly, and to Regulate the Elections," certifying anew to 
their being established law — a result reported by the Doctor 
in a letter of January 11, 1766, and read to the Assembly 
on May 6th. On June 3rd, Governor Penn formally notified 
the Assembly of ofiftcial notice of the repeal of the Stamp 
Act in a royal communication, in which is also expressed 
appreciation of Pennsylvania's course and congratulation on 
the Governor's marriage to a daughter of Chief Justice 
William Allen. With this close of the political upheaval 
which brought Judge Bryan into inter-colonial and recog- 
nized public leadership, attention may be turned to his pri- 
vate life. 

It may be recalled that up to and including the year 1764, 
Judge and Mrs. Bryan had four children, Sarah, Samuel, 
Arthur and Frances, and that they were members of the 



78 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Second Presbyterian Church organized by Whitefield and 
presided over by Rev. Gilbert Tennant, one of the greatest 
preachers ever produced in America. Whether the death of 
Rev. Tennant on July 23, 1764, caused Judge Bryan to look 
elsewhere for a pastor or not, the family did decide to join 
the older First Presbyterian Chvirch of which there were 
two most able and scholarly men pastor and associate. It 
will be worth while to note one of these men, particularly, 
because he was to be closely associated with Judge Bryan 
in public affairs in the future. This was Dr. John Ewing, 
who, at this time, was a man of almost exactly Judge Bryan's 
age, having been born in 1732 in Maryland in the Scotch- 
Irish Presbyterian settlement about Nottingham. He was 
educated at the Academy at New London, Pennsylvania, 
under Rev., later Dr., Francis Alison, a scholarly man now 
sixty years of age and his associate pastor of the First 
Church, and the rector or Principal of the Academy of 
Philadelphia the very year Judge Bryan came from Ireland, 
the ancestral home of Dr. Ewing and the native country of 
Dr. Alison. With the erection of this Academy into the 
College of Philadelphia, Dr. Alison had become Vice-Pro- 
vost and Professor of Moral Philosophy, and Dr. Ewing, 
after graduating from Princeton College and having studied 
theology under Dr. Alison and become a member of the 
faculty of the College of Philadelphia at Fourth and Arch 
Streets, was in 1759 unanimously chosen pastor of the First 
Church. Since 1704 this church had been located on the 
south side of Market Street at the corner of Bank Street, 
in a buttonwood grove. Dr. Alison, the associate, was said 
by a president of Yale to be the greatest Greek scholar in 
America, and Dr. Ewing, by an equal authority in Prince- 
ton, was said to be unequalled in America in a command of 
all departments of learning taught in the colleges of that 
day. With these two scholarly members of the faculty of 
the college of Philadelphia as pastor and associate of the 
First Church, at the death of Rev. Tennant, it was not 
strange that Judge Bryan and his family found it more to 
their liking than the one which had suffered such a loss in 
the passing of probably the greatest preacher in America, 



PRESERVING THE OLD CONSTITUTION 79 

and especially since these two men were quite as progres- 
sive in belief as the followers of Whitefield. And there- 
fore when his fifth child, and second daughter, Mary, was 
born about two months after he left for the Stamp Act 
Congress, namely, on December 2, 1765, she was baptized 
soon afterwards by Rev. Dr. Alison.^ About two years 
later a fourth son was born on November 3, 1767, and 
given his father's name, George, Jr., who was destined also 
to have a part in Pennsylvania's public life.- 

Besides his family life and his business as an importing 
merchant. Judge Bryan gave conscientious attention to his 
duties in the various courts. He did not appear in the 
Orphans' Court at all during the fall, winter and spring of 
1765-6, as he was no doubt more frequently assigned to the 
civil branch, whose records are not helpful in determining 
those details. In June, 1766, however, he was again on the 
Orphans' Court bench at the Court House at Second and 
Market Streets, and served a little over half the sessions 
during the rest of that year, while in the following year he 
was on this bench during most of its sessions. Indeed Judge 
Bryan was proving himself as able as a jurist as he had 
shown himself as an importing merchant and political leader. 

The Assembly, chosen at the October election of 1766, 
was overwhelmingly a Franklin-Quaker one, so much so 
that Lawyer Galloway, their vigorous and able leader, was 
also made Speaker and Chairman of the committee on in- 
struction to Agents Franklin and Jackson. They still urged 
the change to Royal government for the province, but their 
urgency for removal of restrictions on paper currency and 
the ban on Irish trade was so very important, and the 
general Ministerial attitude to colonial theory so alarming, 
that their original subject was of necessit}^ subordinated to 
these, and so made more of a feeling of security amongst 
the Bryan element. This was in part also due to Lawyer 
Dickinson's intuitive concern for the new Ministerial 
theories and also to an aggressive personality in England 

^ Records of First Presbyterian Church, copies at Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania, p. 255. 

* Records First Presbyterian Church as before. 



80 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

who had been powerful enough to secure a modification of 
the constitution of the Colonial Board of Trade and then 
accepted a position in it in August, 1766. For, while the 
Stamp Act had been repealed, the policy that prompted it 
was becoming more organic and accepted every day. 

This aggressive personality was the Earl of Hillsborough 
of the Irish peerage, an Englishman so elevated the last 
year Judge Bryan was in Dublin. He had entered the House 
of Lords in 1756 and in 1763, on completion of the treaty 
which gave Great Britain so great an addition to her colonial 
empire, he was made successor to Lord Shelburne, as Presi- 
dent of the colonial Board of Trade and Foreign Plantations, 
and was designed to be an organ of the new colonial 
theories ; so that even Mr. Pitt, when he came to power, 
persuaded him to remain, although he resigned in Decem- 
ber, 1766, to become Joint Postmaster General. This was 
only temporary, however, for, during 1767, the new colonial 
constitutional theories were further consolidated and fur- 
nished an organ in the new office of Third Secretary of 
State for the Colonies, to which he was promoted in Janu- 
ary, following. Dr. Franklin knew these things and was 
as much concerned as Mr. Dickinson, so that this ominous 
element was like a cloud no bigger than a man's hand on 
the horizon, but whose significance was understood. Hence 
the allaying power of it in the aggressiveness of the Anti- 
Proprietary activities. 

The activities of the Assembly therefore had much to 
do with the great growth of the province. The need for 
more currency was so great that a Merchants Association 
agreed to take their members' individual notes as currency 
and it had become so widespread a practice that by January 
12, 1767, the Assembly was forced to take action and did 
forbid it on February 4th. The great growth of settlement 
in the frontier counties forced other subjects to the front, 
such as a greater provision for the administration of justice 
by men of some learning in the law ; for the judges in these 
counties were still less fortunate in legal learning than those 
in the older counties, so that recourse was had to a court 
created to meet somewhat similar needs in Great Britain, 



PRESERVING THE OLD CONSTITUTION 81 

namely, the Nisi Prius courts, to be held by Justices of the 
Supreme Court of the province, who were to divide up the 
province am'ong them and hold courts for more important 
cases. After considerable disagreement between Governor 
Penn and Lawyer Galloway's Assembly, it was passed on 
]\Iay 20th, and for many decades became probablby the 
favorite court of the province and state. Scarcely less im- 
portant was the trouble caused by settlement of whites on 
Indian lands which made preparation for a new treaty and 
land purchase an imminent necessity, and was to result in 
the purchase of November 5, 1758, covering a consider- 
able share of the northeastern and southwestern parts of 
the province with a narrow connecting strip between.^ 

The year of Stamp Act excitement, 1765-66, had pro- 
duced a great intellectual stimulus and, as is often the case, 
served to bring to more rapid maturity, the new generation 
of able young men such as Dr. John Morgan, Charles 
Thomson, James Wilson, Rev. William White and others 
of that age in Philadelphia. It will be recalled that the 
dozen young m^en, of whom Franklin was one, in 1727, 
when they organized the secret improvement club called 
"The Junto," designed it for self-education of men just 
become of age. As they soon had applications for new 
members, but wished to preserve the small club qualities, 
each one organized new clubs with new names in 1736, and 
after. By 1743 they developed separately a still larger or- 
ganization after the manner of learned and scientific socie- 
ties abroad, and named the American Philosophical Society. 
By 1751, when Judge Bryan was of age, another brilliant 
young Irishman, Charles Thomson, of about the same age, 
also a student of Dr. Alison at the old New London Acad- 
emy, had come to Philadelphia as a tutor in the Academy of 
Philadelphia and Franklin aided him in establishing a branch 
"Junto," the only one apparently to be given the same name 
as the original.^ By the early 60s, however, this able and 

^ For map see Life and Times of Thomas Smith, by Burton Alva Konkle, 
p. 28. 

^ See Dr. Robt. W. Patterson's Centennial Address on the American Philo- 
sophical Society. See also the Rport of 1914 by the American Philosophical 
Society, which includes a paper by Prof. E. P. Cheney as a minority- report, 
whose reasoning appeals much to the present writer, as to the existence of a 
secondary "Junto." 



82 BRYAN AND PEXXSYLVAXIA'S CONSTITUTION 

scholarly young man had also become a Philadelphia ini- 
porting merchant and it has to be confessed that these ambi- 
tious societies here described had sunk somewhat into a 
period of innocuous desuetude, also to be reinvigorated 
by the inter-colonial upheaval of 1765-66; for, in May, '66, 
the Thomson "Junto,'' also, like its older namesake, reor- 
ganized into a more pretentious learned and scientific body, 
and called the new one "The American Society for Promot- 
ing and Propagating Useful Knowledge, held at Philadel- 
phia," or "The American Society," for short. The new 
name, unlike that of the American Philosophical Society, 
which was merely American in contra-distinction from 
European, was definitely chosen as American, in the sense 
of inter-colonial or continental, headquartering at "the center 
of the colonies," but "to promote the interests of our coun- 
try" and "raise her to some eminence in the rank of polite 
and learned nations" — so that the new inter-colonial con- 
sciousness was definitely expressed in this new body, and 
they increased in numbers during 1767, especially amiong 
younger men of ability and even called Dr. Franklin to join 
them. It thus early showed itself to be in sympathy with 
the Anti-Proprietary element, as well as the inter-colonial 
element. Indeed its activities were so marked, with men 
like Dr. Morgan, Thomson, ]^Iifflin and others of like char- 
acter, that the older body. The American Philosophical 
Society, began to rehabilitate itself on distinctly conserva- 
tive and Proprietary lines : Governor John Penn was secured 
as its patron and by November, 1767, they decided to antici- 
pate the other society and during the following January 
elected no less than forty-four new members, "including 
men of the highest rank and most distinguished talent in 
the colony," says Dr. Patterson. Among those chosen on 
January 12, 1768, was Judge George Bryan of the Stamp 
Act Congress, and under the Governor's patronage the 
State or Province House at Fifth and Chestnut Streets, was 
their regular place of meeting, while the College of Phila- 
delphia was to be tlieir laboratory for experiments. On 
February 9th, ex-Governor James Hamilton became Presi- 
dent ; Drs. Shippen and Bond, Vice-Presidents ; and Provost 



PRESERVING THE OLD CONSTITUTION 83 

Dr. Smith, Rev. Professor John Ewing and Dr. Charles 
Moore were Secretaries. Judge Bryan's pastor, Profes- 
sor Ewing, it was, who proposed that they prepare scien- 
tifically to observe the transit of Venus the following year. 

Something was happening during these winter months 
preceding this election, that was greatly to affect these two 
politico-scientific bodies. It will be seen that the avowed 
Proprietary element, like the Penns, Hamiltons, Aliens, et al., 
were dominant in the Philosophical Society and that those 
conservative lovers of the old constitution of 1701, like 
Judge Bryan, who were not Proprietary in any other sense, 
were naturally forced to coalesce with them in the face of 
the overwhelming Franklin-Quaker party in the Assembly, 
with whom the American Society was in sympathy. But, as 
the Stamp Act upheaval of 1765-66 had served to weld them 
all together temporarily, so the Hillsborough tenacity for 
the new colonial theories, that was felt more and more dur- 
ing '66 and '67 was now destined to have a similar influence 
in the relation of those two bodies, and by a man who was 
a member of neither one, namely, Judge Bryan's fellow 
delegate to the Stamp Act Congress, Lawyer John Dickin- 
son, who, on December 2, and 3, '67, issued in various papers 
Letters Frofn a Farmer. 

These appeals were forced from him, he said, by the 
fact that tzvo sessions of Assembly of Pennsylvania had 
occurred and with no notice of the Parliamentary suppres- 
sion of New York's Assembly because they had not voted 
as much money as Parliament thought they ought! "The 
cause of one is the cause of all!" A week later he pointed 
to the unconstitutionality of the recent paper and glass act 
as also revenue measures, and before Christmas he warned 
Parliament that they would be resisted like the Stuart 
tyrants and would have another Stamp Act conflagration 
about their heads if they did not take heed. Just before 
New Year's day, '68, he showed them how for a hundred 
and fifty years scrupulous respect had been shown for the 
right of colonial self-taxation and early in January showed 
that if the paper and glass act was to stand the colonists 
were "slaves.'' Before the end of the month he gave a 



;84 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

luminous view of how, ever since 1688 the British govern- 
ment had been attempting to subdue the colonies by remov- 
ing from them "the power of the purse" by trying to make 
colonial executives independent of Assemblies and refusing 
to make the judiciary independent of the executives, and 
now actually asserted the policy in an act following the 
Stamp act repealer! 

By this time these Letters had reached and roused all 
the colonies until they were aflame and almost as much 
united as in the Stamp Act upheaval. The young men of 
the American Society concluded to propose a union of the 
two, if it could be done on a basis "equally honorable to 
both," and on February 2nd, just a week before the older 
society's election, sent their proposal. The older society 
conceived of this as an application for individual member- 
ship, instead of a union, and, suspending one of its laws, 
■elected the whole body of the American Society to member- 
ship! This proceeding the younger body declined to recog- 
nize, and nearly a year passed before the older society, on 
November 15, 1768, began negotiations that resulted in a 
Tinion "equally honorable to both," and on January 2, 1769, 
ihe combined Society held its first meeting and election — a 
:significant event. Of the two hundred and fifty members, 
;about half or one hundred and twenty-four were Philadel- 
phia county residents, and eighty-nine votes were cast, 
which showed the vital nature of this event. The result 
was that the American Society won the presidency in Dr. 
Franklin, and Governor John Penn declined to be patron, 
in tart terms. 

Within a month of this election, namely on February 6, 
1769, the Merchants of Philadelphia, who had long been 
urged by Boston and New York to join a new non-importa- 
tion movement, but had hesitated, to await the results of the 
work of the two Pennsylvania agents in London, now took 
preliminary action, which was completed on March 10th, 
Judge Bryan presumably being among the number as be- 
fore.^ The diversity of ideas, in different cities and in dif- 

1 Boston had urged New York to join them on August 11, 1768, and the 
New York merchants, led by Murray, Sears, Broome, Franklin, Cruger, the 



PRESERVING THE OLD CONSTITUTION 85 

ferent elements of the same city, as to the details of putting 
non-importation in operation and how much non-importa- 
tion should be undertaken, made this a far less successful 
enterprise than before, but led to a remarkable community 
of correspondence between the leading men of the various 
colonies, for more than two years, that cannot be overlooked 
as an element of inter-colonial or American union, and 
Judge Bryan was one of the leading members of these com- 
mercial unions in resistance of the new colonial theories 
being put in operation by Hillsborough. 

But the conflagration caused by Lawyer Dickinson's 
Letters was not confined to the Merchants Associations. 
Within four months from the appearance of the first letter 
in November, '67, Massachusetts Assembly urged the other 
Assemblies to united action and on April 21, '68, Lord 
Hillsborough wrote warning the other colonies, in the 
name of the King, against that colony's "most dangerous 
and factious tendencies" and urging them, and, in Pennsyl- 
vania's case, demanding of Governor Penn that if the As- 
sembly did not heed the warning he, the Governor, should 
prorogue or dissolve them ! But, on May 9th, Virginia's 
House of Representatives had also addressed the Assembly 
at Philadelphia in terms as positive as that of Massachusetts. 
By September 16th, the Assembly announced that no 
Governor had a right to prorogue or dissolve them, and they 
were the sole arbiters of adjournment, and on the 22nd 
voted petition to King, Lords and Commons, and sent vigor- 
ous instructions to their London Agents. They recognized 
the Hillsborough policies of removing all control of the 
Assemblies over the executives and their appointees during 
pleasure, the judiciary. They also asserted their rights of 
correspondence with other legislatures, and these were un- 
doubtedly largely written by Speaker Galloway. The King's 
part in this, and his course in the royal colonies of New 
York and Virginia, gave good ground for apprehension 



Beekmans, Waltons and one or two others, had in turn urged those in Phila- 
delphia, addressing Willing and Morris, Drinker, the Mifflins, Wharton "and 
the rest of the Merchants of Philadelphia" on September 1st following. Letter 
in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The records of this association are 
not available. 



86 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

lest a change from the Proprietary would be a movement 
"from the frying-pan into the fire," and really strengthened 
the position of the Bryan element, whose main purpose was 
the preservation of the constitution of 1701 and its sup- 
porting laws. Therefore the Bryan element and the Pro- 
prietary, if not together, were equally in opposition to the 
Franklin-Galloway-Quaker party. 



CHAPTER VII 

Merchant Bryan Fails While Judge Bryan Succeeds 
AS Jurist and Political Leader 

1769 

If the non-importation agreements of 1765 had been very 
trying to the merchant importers above all others, that of 
March 10, 1769, was far more so, especially with those 
whose trade, or principals, were largely with or in Ireland, 
on which there was something of a ban and had been since 

1766. There is somie evidence that this affected Merchant 
Bryan both at Philadelphia and in Dublin. As his adver- 
tisements grow fewer and fewer, they indicate his activities 
on various side lines. On March 13, 1766, he advertises 
for a paper-maker to go to Connecticut, and on January 1, 

1767, his name does not appear in an extensive list of mer- 
chants of Philadelphia who refuse to accept the private 
notes of individuals circulating as money. On February 
5th he appears to be acting also as agent for a Nova Scotia 
colonization plan, while on May 14th, now located in 
Front Street, near Walnut, he advertises as an exporter of 
lumber for ships, next door to William Coleman's. By July 
9th, he announces for sale the time of a very considerable lot 
of servants just arrived. After this variety of advertising 
and the change of his location, it can hardly be other than 
very significant to find no more advertisements of any kind, 
not only for that year, 1768, 1769, and 1770 but ever again ; 
while on September 19, 1771, there appeared a notice of a 
Sheriff's sale of George Bryan's lands in Tinicum Township 
to take place on the 30th of the same month. His mer- 
cantile failure, while well known, apparently cannot be 
located more nearly in time than is here indicated. But 
that it was due to his own fault, as many opposed to him 
politically assumed, is known to be otherwise, and vouched 

87 



88 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

for by no less a person than Professor John Ewing, his old 
pastor and sometime Provost of the University of Penn- 
sylvania. He said that Judge Bryan had told him that it 
was due to the failure of others in Dublin with whom he 
had important connections. A writer in the Pennsylvania 
Gazette, in a sketch of Judge Bryan, which made use of a 
sketch by Dr. Ewing, speaks of his "extensive field of com- 
mercial enterprise, but the misfortunes of persons abroad 
unexpectedly inducing him to withdraw" from it, "he re- 
tired, with only a sufficiency to pay his debts. From this 
period, he became more than ever devoted to an honest and 
honorable simplicity, worthy of the best days of the old 
republics. Inattentive to private pursuits, his activity and 
intelligence were now almost wholly directed to the public 
weal."^ 

A more clear idea of Judge Bryan's character, as de- 
scribed by Dr. Ewing, is desirable at this point: "Formed 
by nature for a close application to study," says the dis- 
tinguished Provost of the University, "animated with an 
ardent thirst for knowledge, and blessed with a memory 
surprisingly tenacious, and the uncommon attendant, a clear, 
penetrating and decisive judgment, his mind was the store- 
house of extensive information on a great variety of sub- 
jects. Thus endowed and qualified, he was able on most 
occasions, to avail himself of the labors and acquisitions, the 
researches and decisions of the most distinguished that had 
finished their course, and set before him. You could there- 
fore, with confidence, generally depend upon his judgment, 
as the last result of laborious investigation and mature de- 
cision. And if you add to these natural and acquired endow- 
ments, the moral virtues and dispositions of his heart, his 
benevolence and sympathy with the distressed, his unaffected 
humility and easiness of access upon all occasions, his readi- 
ness to forgive, and his godlike superiority to the injuries 
of a misjudging world (an imitation of his divine Master, 



^ The Pennsylvania Gazette of 2nd Feb. 1791. The writer has seen a letter 
of 1786, written in Dublin by a Philadelphian who had business relations with 
a brother of Judge Bryan over there, that seems to suggest that it was this 
brother whose misfortunes caused George Bryan's failure as a merchant 
importer. 



THE MERCHANT AS JUDGE 89 

who, when he was reviled, reviled not again), his inflexible 
integrity in the administration of justice, together with his 
excellent contempt of both the frowns and the blandish- 
ments of the world, you will find him eminently qualified 
for the faithful and honorable discharge of the various 
public offices wliich he filled with dignity and reputation 
even in the worst of times, and in the midst of a torrent of 
unmerited obloquy and opposition. Such an assemblage 
of unusual qualifications and virtues, . . . but seldom 
unite in a single man."^ Another writer says: "His mind 
ever remained unrufi^ed and unbroken. The firmness of his 
resolution was invincible, and the mildness of his temper 
never changed. His knowledge was very extensive : the 
strength of his memory verified what has been thought in- 
credible or fabulous when related of others. His judgment 
was correct, his modesty extreme, his benevolence un- 
bounded, and his piety unaffected and exemplary."- These 
sentiments, even allowing the discount for friendly partizan- 
ship, are remarkable tributes and portray a very high type 
of character, which will serve to interpret his part in com- 
ing events of a most remarkable kind. 

Therefore, while Judge Bryan was giving more and 
more of his time to the courts, the non-importation agree- 
ments, which had become general in 1769, and were attended 
with great variety of opinions and a consequently large 
amount of inter-provincial correspondence, were causing 
great irritation in Parliament and appropriately aggressive 
measures in these colonies, which, like Massachusetts, were 
making some overt act that could be used as a reason for 
punishment. Dissolution of Assemblies and quartering of 
troops followed in some cases, but the persistence of the 
resistance everywhere and the opposition of Burke's leader- 
ship were so great pressure upon Parliament during 1769 
and 70, that in March of the latter year, a vote on repeal 
was taken, the discussion of which revealed a general will- 
ingness to repeal all but the tax on East India tea. This 
was apparently because of an arrangement of the govern- 

^ The American Museum (magazine) for first half of 1791, p. 81-2. 
2 Dunlap's American Advertiser, 31st Jan. 1791. 



90 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

ment with the East India Company, but actually because 
of Lord Hillsborough's policy, publicly avowed on May 
18th of that year, that it had been the object of every min- 
ister since the reign of Charles II to establish a civil list 
in the American colonies independent of the Assemblies ! 
Therefore, when by a vote of 204 to 142 in favor of not 
repealing the tax on tea was taken, it was adequate evidence 
that the policy of Parliamentary supremacy over the colonies 
was practically avowed. This enabled the long suffering 
Merchants' Associations to consider the advisability of con- 
fining non-importation to tea alone, New York leading in 
July and notifying the Philadelphia association, who re- 
torted that the New Yorkers had thus, "in the day of trial, 
deserted the cause of liberty and your country." By August 
they heard of the Hillsborough determination to penalize 
non-importation agreements as criminal conspiracy and by 
September the Philadelphia merchants adopted the New 
York policy, and trade sprang up again, except in tea. 

The Assembly during this period also saw the new 
menace looming up so tremendously that its instructions 
to their Agents were devoted entirely to it. Besides deny- 
ing the Parliamentary right to tax, they dwelt upon its 
inadvisability as causing manufacturers to arise here, 
as increasing the drain of silver until debts cannot be paid 
at all, as making the executive independent of the Assem- 
bly, as making the judiciary not independent of the execu- 
tive, when they are independent in both Great Britain and 
Ireland.^ Early in 1769, they move again for more paper 
currency and the Governor again resists them, for he claims 
their bill for £120,000 provides for their own control of 
the fund. By September, 1770, the Assembly discovered 
the local aggressiveness of the Hillsborough measures, when 
they learned that the Board of Trade had captured their 
very able co-agent Mr. Jackson, who had resigned to be- 
come the Board's counsel. This left Franklin alone as 
Agent, and this situation again brought Lawyer Dickinson 
to the Assembly in October, 1770, with Lawyer Galloway 
returned from Bucks county. By February 4, 1771, the 

^ Votes of Assembly, of Sept 22, 1768. 



THE MERCHANT AS JUDGE 91 

Assembly had Dickinson voice a petition to the King against 
the tea issue, but Lawyer Galloway was again in the saddle 
at the October election and Mr. Dickinson out, while the 
death of Richard Penn, Sr., caused the return of John Penn 
to England in May and the commissioning of Governor 
Richard Penn, Jr., in July, although his service was destined 
to be but temporary and John Penn resumed the executive 
office by commission of April 4, 1773. 

Much of the phenomena of Pennsylvania political move- 
ment at this period was in large measure due to her great 
growth. The year that George Bryan settled in Philadel- 
phia, 1752, besides the three original counties of Chester, 
Philadelphia and Bucks, five new counties had been organ- 
ized — Lancaster in 1729, York in 1749 — only three years be- 
fore, Cumberland in 1750 — only two years before, while two, 
Berks and Northampton were organized that very year, LTp 
to that year also Indian lands had been purchased back (in 
a general description of it) to the Susquehanna and its 
eastern branch and beyond Carlisle and Chambersburg. In 
the twenty years of his experiences as a leading citizen and 
judge of Philadelphia, the Indians had been bought out ex- 
cept about the northwestern third of the province, in two 
purchases, one of 1758, covering a mountain section in the 
south central part, from about Bedford nearly to Sunbury, 
and one ten years later covering the rest with the exception 
mentioned. These made possible the organization of the 
three new counties — Bedford in 1771, including almost the 
western half of the province, Northumberland in 1772, a 
vast section covering approximately the northeastern quar- 
ter of the colony, and, finally, the last before hostilities 
broke out, a new one carved out of Bedford, called West- 
moreland, to cover the southwestern corner about Fort Pitt, 
and organized in 1773, all of which may be more clearly 
seen in the accompanying maps. It will thus appear that it 
was chiefly the south half of the province which was settled, 
with a fringe on the northeast and a scattered element in 
the general region of the junction of the two branches of 
the Susquehanna. The leading feature of it all was the in- 
crease in population on the great highway to Fort Pitt. In 



92 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

this there was a very large element of Scotch-Irish, who 
were chiefly Presbyterian, and who bore so large a share 
of the actual fighting in the colony during the late wars. 
Among these, as a merchant importer, Mr. Bryan had a 
large trade and correspondence and, should occasion arise, 
as was so ominously possible, when a political question 
should cause a greater cleavage between what might be called 
the old Quaker counties and the new Presbyterian counties 
the way would be open for very able Presbyterian leader- 
ship in the midst of the Quaker metropolis. 

Before going further, it may be well to glance at the 
characteristics of Pennsylvania leadership at this time. Dr. 
Franklin and his lieutenant, Lawyer Galloway, were leaders 
of Anti-Proprietary and Pro-Royalist movement, until the 
new policy of Parliamentary supremacy made some modi- 
fication. The former then became less a leader in the prov- 
ince and more of an inter-colonial leader against that su- 
premacy. The latter, by nature, more Pro-Royalist than 
his colleague in London, now continued his leadership of 
the Franklin-Quaker party and sought to find a Pro-Royal 
solution as a compromise. He was among the earliest to 
conceive of a new constitution of the American colonies, 
such as the British had conceived for Durham and Chester; 
his political instincts were thoroughly British in methods of 
expediency and opportunism, and he was interested in the 
details. Lawyer Dickinson was an idealist, with a profound 
philosophical conception of the principles of British liberty, 
a sort of American Sidney, or Hampden. He was not a 
party leader in the sense that either Franklin or Galloway 
was, but was a John The Baptist, crying in the political 
wilderness, who arose with the crisis and became its voice — 
his interest and his ability largely ceased when that was 
over. The leadership of Judge Bryan was of a slower 
growth and as he grew in power and public regard as a 
judge, and as a man, it was largely due to his moral and 
intellectual character, and as representing those, who, what- 
ever happened, proposed to hold fast to the liberties wrought 
out in their Pennsylvania Magna Charta. the constitution of 
David Lloyd of 1701 and its supporting statutes. In many 



THE MERCHANT AS JUDGE 93 

ways he remiinds one of David Lloyd. Both were men of 
comparatively few words, but of great personal force of 
character and natural qualities of unforced leadership. Both 
had naturally legal and political minds, of unusual perspi- 
cacity in those field. Both suffered from a certain nar- 
rowness that often comes from self-education. Both had a 
quiet tenacity of purpose that knew no relaxation. Both 
aroused intense friendships and equally intense enmities. 
Both were popular leaders and leaders of what might be 
called, as in England, the Country Party. Both absorbed 
the leadership of their party into their own person. Neither 
were brilliant, but both had great natural wisdom. Both 
were tremendous workers and had great administrative 
capacity. Both were a remarkable mixture of radical and 
conservative, what might be called radical conservative, 
radical for the purpose of conservation. Both were close to 
the people and were theoretically and practically democratic. 
It was no accident that George Bryan became the defender 
and conservator of the work of David Lloyd, for they saw 
the same great vitalities. Neither were theorists or pub- 
licists ; and both saw only to within certain prescribed limits. 
Both had a grasp of fundamentals and so, within their 
limits, built solidly. They also had a profound consciousness 
of fundamentals as such. Friends and enemies recognized 
this and so their leadership came to them ; it was not sought. 
These were the four chief leaders of the people, as dis- 
tinguished from the Proprietary. One was destined for the 
international field, one the British interest, one as pioneer 
publicist and the other, Judge Bryan, of the Philadelphia 
courts, as the provincial leader. Judge Bryan, as has been 
seen, was commissioned first in 1764 as a Judge of Common 
Pleas and Orphans' Court. He served in these courts in the 
Court House at Second and Market Streets and was one of 
those, who, because of evident talent for it, came to be among 
the few commissioned who, by a process of selection, became 
the real judges almost exclusively. He served under his 
first commission for six years, apparently, or until his second 
commission on June 4, 1770. He was again commissioned 
on April 27, 1772, so that when the Anglo-American tension 



94 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

over Parliamentary supremacy came close to the breaking 
point in 1773, Judge Bryan had been on the benches of 
these courts for almost a decade, and was recognized as one 
of their first judges of courts below the Supreme Court and 
that of the Vice-Admiralty. 

By 1773 another legal figure began to appear on the 
horizon, who was destined also to be a political figure, and 
Judge Bryan's greatest rival as far as the constitution of 
Pennsylvania was concerned, for it was in that year that he 
came to public attention by winning a retainer as an attorney 
for the Proprietary estates, the greatest legal prize for 
lawyers in those days. This was a young lawyer in Carlisle, 
James Wilson by name, a dozen years younger than Judge 
Bryan, who was forty-two years old at this date. The 
young man was a Scotchman, born near St. Andrews in 
1742, and educated in St. Andrews, Glasgow and Edin- 
burgh Universities, and he had arrived in New York just 
before Judge Bryan and his two colleagues, Dickinson and 
Morton, arrived as members of the Stamp Act Congress. 
He was then seeking an opening as a teacher either in Kings 
College there or in the College of Philadelphia, in which 
latter institution he was successful in the following mid- 
winter. Furthermore, during 1766, he became a student at 
law under Lawyer Dickinson and so continued for two 
years, but was admitted to the bar in the various counties 
in 1767. In education, therefore, he had no superior in 
Pennsylvania, or probably in any of the colonies, and in 
1768 when he settled temporarily in Reading, he had won a 
high place in Philadelphia, for a young man, in literature, 
law and love, for, in collaboration with one who was to be- 
come Bishop William, White, he was author of some nota- 
ble papers called The Visitant, so notable as to displace 
The Letters of a Farmer, by his preceptor, from first page, 
had the prestige of a Dickinson student at law and had won 
the heart of the sister of the Reading iron-master, Mr. 
Mark Bird, while the vigorous American Society fostered 
by Mr. Charles Thomson, Dr. John Morgan and other 
young men of learning and ability, had elected him to a 
membership, which was soon to take him into the new com- 



THE MERCHANT AS JUDGE 95 

bined organization to be known as the American Philosophi- 
cal Society. In the following mid-winter, however, he con- 
cluded to settle among the Scotch and Scotch-Irish at Car- 
lisle, rather than among the German population at Reading, 
and during 1769-70 became so profoundly studious of the 
basis of Parliamentary claim to authority over the colonies, 
that when non-importation agreements collapsed, or were 
reduced to include only a boycott on tea, he had prepared 
a paper that was destined to win him a place among authori- 
ties on colonial constitution. In addition to this, he had won 
a place as the greatest lawyer outside of Philadelphia by 
1773 and had been retained by the Proprietary. It will be 
seen, therefore, that, unlike Judge Bryan, he had not been 
in Pennsylvania long enough to have had part in the Anti- 
Proprietary warfare, or felt its cleavages in any personal 
way, or felt any of that affection for the old Lloydean con- 
stitution of 1701, such as men like Judge Bryan felt, who 
had lived through these struggles of the past twenty years. 
Mr. Wilson's instincts were more for the great questions 
that his preceptor had raised and his own fresh studies of 
imperial colonial constitution ; and at this time he had 
formulated the theory that no colonial, constitutional, im- 
perial structure could stand solidly, except a union solely 
under the Crown — that no British legislature could have 
authority over another British legislature ; hence Parliament 
could have no legislative authority over the colonies. In 
other words the Parliament of Pennsylvania was composed 
of Crown, Governor and Assembly, only. This theory was 
only held by him privately at this time ; it was not yet pub- 
lished, and so he had not yet entered the field of politics. 
Here he was in Cumberland county, however, as a political 
potentiality, in the field in which Judge Bryan was so favor- 
ably known. And it would be passing strange, if Judge 
Bryan of Philadelphia should become the leader of the 
frontier counties on the great Forbes road to Fort Pitt, and 
the brilliant young Carlisle lawyer and Episcopalian, James 
Wilson, should become the leader of metropolitan Philadel- 
phia and especially most of its wealth and culture ! He was 
made a lecturer on English Literature in the College of 



96 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Philadelphia this very year and gave his courses for the 
next six years in the intervals of a busy legal and political 
life, so that he was a colleague of Judge Bryan's pastor, 
the Rev. Professor John Ewing, at this date. Both Judge 
Bryan and Lawyer Wilson were also members of the city's 
most learned and semi-political organization, the American 
Philosophical Society, but the former came into it from the 
Proprietary conservative wing, while the latter reached it 
through the aggressive Anti-Proprietary and radical branch. 
While this Carlisle lawyer had arrived in his studies at 
the conclusion that Parliament had no authority over the 
colonies, on January 6th, of this same year, 1773, the British 
Governor Thomas Hutchinson of Boston was trying to con- 
vince his Council and the Assembly that such a theory meant 
colonial independence. 'T know of no line," said he, "that 
can be drawn between the supreme authority of Parliament 
and the total independence of the colonies : It is impossible 
that there should be two independent legislatures in one and 
the same state, for although there may be but one head, the 
King, yet the two legislative bodies will make two govern- 
ments as distinct as the Kingdoms of England and Scot- 
land before the union." Then, after reminding them of the 
protective power, he added : "Is there anything which we 
have more reason to dread than independence?" To this, 
on the 27th, their Assembly was replying: "If there be no 
such line, the consequence is, either that the colonies are 
vassals of Parliament, or, that they are totally independent. 
As it cannot be supposed to have been the intention of the 
parties in the compact, that we should be reduced to a state 
of vasalage, the conclusion is, that it was their sense, that 
we were then independent. . . . May we not further con- 
clude, that it was their sense that the colonies were by their 
charters made distinct states from the mother country?" 
"If," they continue, "your Excellency expects to have the 
line of distinction between the supreme authority of Parlia- 
ment and the total independence of the colonies drawn by 
us, we would say that it would be a very arduous under- 
taking, and of very great importance to all the other colonies ; 
and, therefore, could we conceive of such a line, we should 



THE MERCHANT AS JUDGE 97 

be unwilling to propose it, without their consent in con- 
gress." 

And an incident in Rhode Island on the following June 
6th, of this year, 1773, was to hasten the occasion for such a 
congress of the colonies. This was the following announce- 
ment on that date at Newport : "The public are hereby in- 
formed that the Honorable the Commissioners, appointed 
by a commission under the great seal of Great Britain, for 
inquiring into the circumstances of attacking, plundering, 
and burning His Majesty's schooner Gaspee, under the 
command of Lieut. William Duddington, on the 10th of 
June last [1772], and to the assembling, arming and leading 
on the persons who made the said attack, and to the con- 
certing and preparing the same, are now convened, and con- 
tinue to sit every day, Sundays excepted, at the Colony 
House in Newport : Wherefore," etc. They had had a 
meeting in January and in May, but with no especial result, 
but their persistence now made it alarming, that they were 
actually introducing an alien court that could take away 
any suspected man to Great Britain for trial. It was not 
so much any significance in the action on Monday, June 8, 
1772, when a sloop dropped anchor at the Newport custom 
house and then went on up the river, was followed by the 
British armed schooner, Gaspee., ran into a bank, and on 
the following early morning the Gaspee was boarded by 
unknown men, her officers captured, her Captain wounded 
and the vessel burned ; not so much this, as the fact that 
an alien criminal court, unknown to colonial constitution, was 
introduced into a colony. "A court of inquisition," said the 
Nezvport Mercury, "more horrid than that of Spain and 
Portugal, is established within this colony, to enquire into 
the circumstances of destroying the Gaspee schooner, and 
the persons who are the commissioners, of this new fangled 
court, are vested with most exhorbitant and unconstitutional 
power: they are directed to summon witnesses, apprehend 
persons not only not impeached, but even suspected !" and 
Admiral Montague was to take them abroad to be tried ! 

Even before Rhode Island was awake to the full meaning 
of this court, on March 12th, the Virginia House of Bur- 



98 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

gesses formed a permanent Committee of Correspondence 
and Inquiry, who were instructed, among other things, to 
investigate the ''Court of Inquiry, said to have been held in 
Rhode Island, with power to transport persons, accused of 
offenses committed in America, to places beyond the seas, 
to be tried" ; and the Speaker was to propose similar Com- 
mittees to each Assembly of the whole continent, even Rhode 
Island. By May and June the other colonies largely re- 
sponded, and at the next meeting of the Pennsylvania As- 
sembly on September 20th, that body, on the 25th, favored it, 
but, as it was to cease existence at the election a week later, 
they recommended it to their successors. This latter body, 
chosen at the October election, was much the same and they 
extended the duties of their usual Committee of Corres- 
pondence to include this object, on October 16th. With the 
appointment of these Committees of Correspondence an 
organ of revolutionary resistance was formed, and the 
colonial period and its old problems came to a close ; and 
in this upheaval. Judge Bryan, one of the most successful 
jurists of the metropolis, and a recognized leader of the 
lovers of the old constitution of 1701 and its supporting 
statutes, was probably concerned about that great consti- 
tution's preservation, and with it the liberties of Pennsyl- 
vania, more than any other man. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Judge Bryan and the Opening Revolution 
1774 

In the opening months of 1774 the whole land was aflame 
over the attempt of the British government in the past few 
months to compel the Americans to take the East India tea, 
by storing it in the various ports in great quantities, and 
so break down their opposition and collect the tax — a tax 
to be used, as had already been begun, in paying the execu- 
tive and judiciary of the colonies to make an independent 
civil list as Lord Hillsborough had declared was their aim. 
Philadelphia, during the holidays of 1773-74, had intimi- 
dated the captain who tried to land tea there and prevented 
it more successfully than did Boston and some other places. 

These and other incidents made everybody sensitive to 
every manifestation of ministerial policy. The royalist 
Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, had tried to get con- 
trol of the head of the Ohio by erecting a county of Virginia 
to cover Fort Pitt, where Pennsylvania had already organized 
Westmoreland county; and on the first day of 1774 an- 
nounced his purpose to take possession of Fort Pitt and 
rename it Fort Dunmore, the colonial lines not having been 
officially marked. A little later Great Britain annexed all 
the lands west of Pennsylvania, north of the Ohio to the 
Mississippi, to Quebec, to cut ofif all claims to that region 
by the various colonies. At the same time, while Boston 
was struggling with her Governor and attempting to re- 
move a Chief Justice who accepted salary from the King, 
and had just learned from Dr. Franklin that that Gover- 
nor's letters were guiding the home government in her 
oppressive measures, the public knowledge of this in Eng- 
land caused Franklin to be publicly insulted and removed 

99 



100 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

from the Postmaster-Generalship of America, and in March 
they proceeded to close the port of Boston to take effect 
June 1st. Committees of Correspondence in the various 
colonies extended their organization to the counties and on 
May 20th, Philadelphia organized with John Dickinson at 
its head, and on June 18th formed a committee to aid Bos- 
ton. Following the action of Virginia, the previous month, 
they urged a general congress, and an informal meeting of 
the Assembly to take proper measures. Governor Penn 
was persuaded to call the Assembly for July 18th, but an 
Assembly controlled by Lawyer Galloway was not trusted 
by Lawyer Dickinson's committee, and they sent out a 
county call for an independent Provincial Conference. 

Judge Bryan was not an active public leader at this par- 
ticular time. He was devoting himself wholly to his duties 
as a metropolitan judge, since the work of the courts had 
grown with the growth of the chief city in America. The 
Assembly, dominated by men who had declared for a Royal 
Province, that threatened the old constitution of the prov- 
ince, was as inimical to Judge Bryan as he was to it ; so 
they would have no use for him. The Proprietary con- 
ceived of him as their colleague, to preserve their interests, 
for the sake of the constitution of 1701, but only for that 
instrument's sake ; so their interest in him' had its limits ; 
besides they were lying low in the presence of the current 
upheaval, in the hopes that it w^ould pass as the Stamp Act 
upheaval had passed, and the province would take much 
the same conservative and skillful course. Besides, the two 
Assembly leaders. Dr. Franklin and Dr. Galloway, were 
now beginning to feel a line of cleavage rising between 
them, as Lawyer Dickinson was rising, as a publicist, to 
play the same part he did in the Stamp Act upheaval. 
Franklin, in London, was feeling the reality of the new 
British policy far more than Galloway, at Philadelphia, with 
his keenness for a Royal government to take the place of 
the Proprietary. The new policy, if forced, was to be capa- 
ble of producing so much greater heat that it was to fuse 
into evaporation all smaller questions, at least with the 
great mass of Americans. Not all saw its seriousness, how- 



THE OPENING REVOLUTION 101 

ever ; for they could not believe Great Britain could adopt 
so vicious a policy. 

Indeed these colonies on the American shore had un- 
consciously worked out a political philosophy of their own, 
in marked divergence from that held in Great Britain. The 
divergence was as great in political science as in the com- 
mon law. They had dwelt so long on their struggle to have 
legislative control of both executive and judiciary, that even 
where it was not largely already secured, as it had been in 
so large measure in Pennsylvania ever since 1723, it was still 
held as the ideal. Indeed they were often charged with 
aiming at essential republic conditions, and the charge was 
not so far wrong. Pennsylvania had worked out a consti- 
tution, composed of the Lloydean constitution of 1701 and 
its supporting statutes, strengthened and established by 
repeated recognition and acceptance by the Crown, so that it 
had come practically to displace the government section of 
the original colonial charter to William Penn. And this 
constitution had in it the vague gropings toward the great 
principle that sovereignty rests in the individual, a principle 
far removed from British political ideals. Nor could it be 
otherwise, when every colonial charter had been a forceful 
teacher of constitutional law, that had made every one of 
them schools of political science, ever discussing the prin- 
ciples of specified and implied powers in the governmental 
sections of their original charters. They went even farther 
and construed those sections of the original charters so 
liberally that they created a new thing in its place, so dif- 
ferent that the British could not understand it. They had 
been refused the extension of the benefits of the revolution 
of 1688 and had built up, little by little, something far 
greater than those principles. For, while the bulk of Great 
Britain's population did not control the governmental power 
of the purse, but still consented to it by others, the colonies, 
like Pennsylvania, did control the power of the purse and 
would not endure it otherwise. In short, representation, in 
Great Britain, was by consent, but not by choice, the one was 
acquiescent, the other directive ; and even so great a mind 
as Lord Mansfield could apparently not see the vast differ- 



102 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

ence. This vast difference, to Judge Bryan, was represented 
b}^ the old constitution of Pennsylvania of 1701 and its 
supporting statutes, or, as he would have put it, "our present 
constitution," in 1774. His mind and heart were centered 
on that, as their sole political hope, and his ten years as a 
Judge, engaged in its interpretation and application, only 
made it more definite and clarified. 

Therefore, in the rapid movements of May, June and 
July, 1774, led by John Dickinson, who now seemed to be 
identified with Dr. Franklin against the Galloway element, 
and both against the Proprietary element, with which they 
associated Judge Bryan and others devoted so singly to the 
old constitution, the latter was slow to be identified with 
them. He was not in the city meeting of June 18th, or in 
the Provincial Conference on July 15th at the beautiful new 
brick structure of the Carpenters' Company, on Chestnut 
Street just below Fourth and nearly facing the entrance to 
the little street on which Dr. Franklin lived. To him it 
looked as if the Assembly, which was then in session at the 
State House on that hot summer day, and the Provincial 
Conference in the second square below it, were rival voices 
in control of the province and both threatening the old con- 
stitution, the one by a Royal government and the other by 
revolution, and both as followers of Franklin, whom he had 
long opposed as a dangerous person to the old constitution. 
He also saw in this Carpenters' Hall Conference a new 
figure arising, in the person of that brilliant young lawyer 
protege of Dickinson's, James Wilson of Carlisle, whom, 
with Dickinson, this Conference wanted the Assembly to 
send as delegates to the new Congress now being loudly 
called for by Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Virginia, 
for September 1st, which was bound to be even more aggres- 
sive than the one of nine years before, in which Judge Bryan 
figured so largely. He also saw that when they sent Thomas 
Wharton, Jr., and others of a committee practically to in- 
struct the Assembly, — because this Conference was the latest 
voice of Pennsylvania, — what to do about this proposed Con- 
gress, that Speaker Galloway and his followers would not 
recognize such a status, nor did they propose to allow Penn- 



THE OPENING REVOLUTION 103 

sylvania to take any such radical action as this Conference 
seemed intent upon. Speaker Galloway and his friends were 
going to represent the province themselves, and the Assembly 
instructed them to stand for rights, but for harmony and 
union. 

Such a course by Speaker Galloway and the Assembly 
Quakers was calculated at once to bring on an attack on the 
Assembly by the now thoroughly aroused Provincial Con- 
ference. The latter's instruction committee was dominated 
by Lawyer Dickinson. Provost Smith, Lawyer Joseph Reed 
and James Wilson, who were all learned men, the last men- 
tioned of whom was the ablest of them all in constitutional 
theory, and who had a very clearly defined political philos- 
ophy, and already had it expressed in manuscript. His 
conclusion was, unlike that of his preceptor, that the colonial 
Parliament was composed of the King, Governor and As- 
sembly, precisely as the British Parliament was composed 
of the King, Lords and Commons, so that the Lords and 
Commons had no authority over the colonial parliament, of 
any kind! This radical position was too much for Lawyer 
Dickinson, who merely wanted a return to the conditions 
before 1763, with a British renunciation of all powers under 
35 Henry VHI, Chapter 2 — of all powers of internal legis- 
lation, internal or external taxation, regulating trade under 
certain conditions, quartering of troops, or collection of their 
expenses, powers of Admiralty courts greater than those in 
Great Britain, 5 George H, Chap. 22, and 23 George H, 
Chap. 29, the Boston port bill, and all other acts recently 
aimed at jMassachusetts Bay. And for these he was ready 
to surrender to absolute control of trade that had been bleed- 
ing this colony for generations and yield otherwise. And 
he won — for the time being. He and Mr. Reed and Charles 
Thomson were ordered to correspond with the other colonies, 
for they proposed that the new Congress should have power 
to resist, on these points, to the death. Over-ruled here, 
Lawyer Wilson at once issued his essay on Parliamentary 
Authority and placed it in the hands of the new Congress 
which gathered at the same hall on September 5th. 

It was well he did so, for Lawyer Galloway was intent 



104 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

on a new plan of organic colonial union with Great Britain, 
just as Wales had once come to a period of necessary re- 
organization into a principality, and he favored something 
somewhat like his friend Dr. Franklin's union of 1754. But, 
the Provincial Conference attack on the Assembly began to 
bear fruit at the October election and they sent Mr. Dickin- 
son to the Assembly, and the Assembly sent him to the 
Congress at Carpenters' Hall. Now began the fiercest kind 
of political fighting, chiefly over whether the laws of nature 
should be a chief basis for colonial action. Mr. Galloway 
was against it, and John Adams and others were for it, and 
the fighting over this and the question of no Parliamentary 
authority or all was so great, that it was finally decided to 
confine action to non-importation and non-exportation of the 
severest kind. The result was that Lawyer Galloway de- 
nied the separate existence of the Crown (though he 
couldn't certainly in the case of Hanover!) which was in- 
sisted upon in Mr. Wilson's pamphlet. Mr. Galloway's 
revival of the Franklin plan, however, did not provide so 
that the British would not have a negative on colonial mat- 
ters while the latter could not have over the former, and so 
his prestige sank, while Mr. Dickinson's old plan prevailed, 
that had been used to such good effect in 1765. It meant 
war, to be sure, while, at the same time it was no solution. 
The Wilson theory, a by-product of this Congress, was the 
most radical program of solution and it attracted the highest 
British attention, no less men than Dean Tucker and Lord 
Mansfield publicly replied to it, but not successfully. It was 
apparently the first glimpse the British leaders had of the 
fundamental difference between them and the new Ameri- 
cans leaders.^ The one sound principle that emerged from 
this Congress was this by-product of it, that the British 
legislature could have no authority over the colonists. 

Therefore, to a man like Judge Bryan, all these were 
revolutionary: Mr. Galloway's new colonial constitution, 
Mr. Dickinson's non-importation and non-exportation to 
compel recantation of ministerial policy, and Mr. Wilson's 

^ See Life and Writings of James WUson, VoL 1, Chap. VI, by Burton 
Alva Konkle, for fuller treatment 



THE OPENING REVOLUTION 105 

denial of all British legislative authority, which also meant 
war. Two of these three meant war, and it was due to 
begin with non-importation on December 1st. Now the 
Quaker and Proprietary elements, led by Mr. Galloway, in 
the Assembly, united — both against this proposed war. The 
adherents of the Provincial Conference, in the Assembly, 
who then began to be called Whigs because the rest were 
dubbed Tories, now sympathized with the Provincial Con- 
ference on January 3rd, at the State House, instead of 
Carpenters' Hall, which indicated the growth of the Whig 
idea. The situation was a delicate one for Pennsylvania be- 
cause the German population had always followed the 
Quakers, so there was great danger of Proprietary interests, 
Quakers and Germans combined as Tories, with the Whig 
following growing stronger day by day and in alliance with 
the new Continental Congress, and the Presbyterian element 
was in sympathy with the Whigs and composed them in 
large part. What is more, events threw Dr. Franklin into 
their arms, since he was day by day being deserted by the 
Quakers, whom he had led so long. As a consequence 
Dr. Franklin had strange bed- fellows — men who had op- 
posed him for years. 

The course of the First Continental Congress made 
necessary a second Provincial Conference on January 23, 
1775, for the war was on; but public feeling had so changed 
in presence of a continuance of British drastic action, that 
this Conference was held in the State House, instead of 
Carpenters' Hall. They approved the acts of the New Con- 
gress, urged prohibition of slave trade, support of Phila- 
delphia when attacked, resistance by force if necessary, and 
wide-spread preparation for an independent existence in 
readiness for any emergency, and adjourned five days later. 
While this was occurring the Assembly was gradually chang- 
ing complexion, with Charles Thomson, Dickinson, Morton 
and Mifflin coming more into dominance. Governor Penn 
wanted the Assembly not to join Congress, but protest indi- 
vidually, but the new men favored Congressional action. 
Then in April came Lexington, Concord and the rest, and 
on May 2nd, Governor Penn sent the Assembly the Com- 



106 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

mons' resolution offering to forgive and forget if the colonies 
will pay their share and provide a civil list ! Two days 
later they reply it is too late, and four days later, Dr. Frank- 
lin returns and, with Thomas Willing and James Wilson, 
is sent to the new Congress, while Galloway asks to be ex- 
cused, a request on which there is no hesitation. Lexington 
and Concord were ancient Lusitanias. The Assembly gave 
up its east room at the State House on May 10th, to the 
new Continental Congress, in which James Wilson became 
prominent, and by June 9th, that Congress had adopted 
James Wilson's theories so far as to advise Massachusetts to 
set up a new government on her original charter ; and on the 
16th Colonel Washington was made Commanding General 
of Congressional forces. By July 16th, Dr. Franklin re- 
vived his proposals of a union as in 1754 — an emergency 
union, not a perpetual one, as Galloway proposed ; but he 
felt sure of its becoming permanent, as neither side would 
give up. Meanwhile, by June 23rd, Chairman Joseph Reed 
of the City Committee urged on the Assembly war prepara- 
tions of a more vigorous character; and on the 30th, Mr. 
Dickinson was made head of a Committee of Safety, but 
by the close of September Dr. Franklin superseded him. 
The Assembly was one on defense of rights, and even more 
so than before, when at the October election, John Morton, 
the colleague of Judge Bryan in the Stamp Act Congress, 
was made Speaker. 

The Assembly, howeVer, was in a very peculiar position 
during the winter of 1775-76, and the fact that they had 
taken oath of loyalty to Crown and Proprietary, while exer- 
cising the British right to resist a Crown that was joining a 
usurping Ministry, did not make it easier. Then, too, the 
Congressional advice to Massachusetts, for which James 
Wilson was largely responsible, namely, that they organize 
a new government on their old charter, had let loose a very 
considerable demand for new governments everywhere, as 
the war proceeded. The British or Royalist colonial action 
at Fort Pitt, the Connecticut intruders in the north and 
among the Indians, aroused the back country in Pennsyl- 
vania, which had been growing so fast that they were not 



THE OPENING REVOLUTION 107 

adequately represented in the Assembly, and they demand 
additional representation. These regions were dominated 
by Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who had been supporters of 
Judge Bryan in 1764, in the movement to preserve the old 
constitution against the Franklin-Quaker royal government 
proposal. With the Quaker refusal to join in warfare, these 
and other Presbyterians and other denominations, came to 
their own, and, as usual, were in no mood to fight battles 
for a province in which the Quaker section refused to bear 
a part, without compelling them to bear some kind of share, 
as petitions to the Assembly at this time abundantly show. 
The Assembly had forty-one members from eleven counties 
and five of the back counties — Lancaster, York, Cumber- 
land, Berks, and Northampton — demanded two additional 
members each, and three — Bedford, Northumberland and 
Westmoreland — demanded one more member each, a total 
of thirteen new members, which would materially affect the 
balance of power in a house of fifty-four members. This 
was passed on March 14, 1776, and the new members did 
not take the oath of allegiance to Great Britain. 

Let it be recalled that this Assembly was sending to the 
new Congress the very men that the first Provincial Con- 
ference of 1774 had wanted ; that, among them, James Wil- 
son had voiced the theory of this resistance, namely, a 
British colonial resistance to a usurping Crown, Ministry 
and Parliament, and that this theory prevailed in both As- 
sembly and Congress up to May '15th; that this Assembly 
was vigorously supporting military action, in hopes of con- 
vincing Great Britain of her error; and that their delegates 
in Congress were so instructed. On May 15, 1776, how- 
ever, the Congress in the east room, in recess of the As- 
sembly (which met up stairs) awaiting the election of the 
thirteen additional members, was completing some resolu- 
tions of the 10th instant, by adding a preamble, which was 
designed to remove all British or Proprietary power in every 
colony — virtually an act of independence. The Assembly, 
when it met on the 20th, were divided on how to construe 
this, most of them believing that the recommendations 
applied only to colonies whose Assemblies were unable to 



108 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

meet or not fully carry on the fight ; not to themselves, who 
were already vigorously acting. It meant revolution, which 
was a new thing; it meant up-rooting the old constitution, 
which had been their boast for three-quarters of a century. 
They concluded the Congress did not mean Pennsylvania. 
Air. Dickinson's ideas were still powerful ; and, although the 
preamble to those Congressional resolutions called for a new 
government to which all could take oath of allegiance, the 
resolution, itself, justified Mr. Dickinson and his friends in 
so construing it, while their own instructions, of November 
9, 1775, like those of several other colonies, were absolutely 
against separation, until it became absolutely necessary. 
The committee of the City had protested to the Assembly 
and a public meeting on the same day, composed of members 
and friends of the Provincial Conference, not only pro- 
tested against the Assembly's course, but also insisted that, 
even if the Assembly was willing, it was not elected to make 
a new government and that a Provincial Convention for that 
purpose should be elected. At the same time the Proprie- 
tary adherents, James Hamilton, chairman, sent in a pro- 
test against any change in instructions or in the old consti- 
tution of Pennsylvania, although the sentiments against 
Great Britain were as intense as that of the other protestors, 
the words "infernal plan of despotism" being used against 
the Ministry. In other words, Pennsylvania was a unit 
against Great Britain, but flamingly divided as to separa- 
tion, now proposed in the Congressional preamble of May 
15th. Judge Bryan was with the present Assembly in its 
attitude of holding to the old constitution, and no separation 
until it became necessary ; but, even more than they, for 
the old constitution, separation or no separation. The As- 
sembly, therefore, as they had no notion of resisting Con- 
gressional measures, indeed they so much wished to do the 
right thing, that on the 22nd of May, they asked Congress 
to explain whether the Assemblies or Conventions now in 
control in the various colonies were, or were not the bodies 
who were to consider holding to the old or creating a new 
form of government. And on this same day. Judge Bryan 
applied to the Assembly, now containing so many of his 



THE OPENING REVOLUTION 109 

adherents, to be given the position of Port or Naval Officer 
of Philadelphia, a provincial office heretofore held by the 
Governor. It was now time for him and his party to get 
into the game, and save the old constitution, in the upheaval 
of independence that seemed now bound to come.^ The 
Assembly on June 5th, in line with Congressional recom- 
mendations about control of arms and vessels, made Judge 
Bryan Port Officer for entering and clearing of vessels, tak- 
ing bonds for observing all regulations of the port and 
general responsibility for the metropolitan port of Penn- 
sylvania. 

Meanwhile petitions and counter-petitions flowed into the 
Assembly in great numbers ; and on May 28th, Cumberland 
county called for removal of the instructions to Congres- 
sional delegates, which prevented them from voting for 
separation and independence of Great Britain. This was the 
county in which Congressman James Wilson lived. It was 
June 14th, however, before they were removed, and this 
delay caused the flood of petitions, or possibly was caused 
by them; but both the delay and this action caused a public 
meeting of the city to direct the "Committee of the City and 
Liberties" to send the Congressional resolutions to the coun- 
ties as a call for them to meet on the 18th of June to arrange 
for the call of a Provincial Convention. This Conference 
provided that each county should elect eight representatives, 
with the same number for Philadelphia city and its liberties, 
the 8th of July was set for the election, and the 15th of 
July for the meeting of the convention. All of this opera- 
tion was hastened by the fact that on June 7th, the Virginia 
delegates in the east room of the State House offered a 
resolution of independence in Congress, and Mr. Wilson 
held them off for three weeks in order that Pennsylvania 
and other provinces might vote in the order they had chosen, 
and so make a general unanimity of action that would tend 
to permanence. Then, too, the operations of the British 
about New York made it evident that Philadelphia was the 



^ In passing it may be observed, with some amusement, that just a week 
later Judge Bryan's old partner in commerce, James Wallace, also applied to 
to the Assembly for the same office. 



110 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

objective, and Congress called for a "Flying Camp" or- 
ganization of 10,000, 6000 of which was to come from Penn- 
sylvania; and this imminent danger ripened the indepen- 
dence movement amazingly fast. 

But because of the old friendship of Mr. Dickinson of 
the Assembly and Mr. Wilson of Congress, who were of 
necessity, or officially, acting in the same line, the Assem- 
blyman from Cumberland county, Robert Whitehill, one of 
Judge Bryan's supporters, was one of those additional mem- 
bers, who did not take the oath of allegiance, and who, on 
June 10th, in a letter, intimated a growing enmity against 
Mr. Wilson, as though he were identified with the Assembly 
members who were wholly against separation, which was 
not the case. This straw serves to show which way the wind 
blew on June 10th, and yet Mr. Wilson was holding Con- 
gress back from a precipitate vote for independence three 
weeks in order that his vote miight be backed by the Pro- 
vincial Conference, not the Assembly, of whose legality 
there was so very much question. 

Now, everything centered on that Provincial Convention, 
which was to be elected on July 8th, whose decision for in- 
dependence was already taken for granted, as that is what 
the Provincial Conference called it for on the 18th of June. 
Indeed a committee of Congress was appointed on the 11th 
of June to draft a declaration of independence and have it 
ready for use when the three weeks agreed upon was up. 
The whole question in Pennsylvania now, from June 18th 
to July 8th, was to elect a Convention which was for or not 
for the old constitution of Pennsylvania, and Port Officer 
Judge Bryan and his friends in the city and the back country 
were determined not to lose the essential features of that 
fundamental law. And a new cleavage was evident. At 
once those who were against independence were suspicioned 
as Tories, and many of the most vigorous and able fighters 
on the old basis, were catalogued as enemies, with those who 
actually were royalists. The new purpose cut the old 
political lines to shreds, and closed the colonial period. 



CHAPTER IX 

Judge Bryan and the Constitutional Convention of 

1776 

July, 1776 

The moment revolution is assured, anxiety for the nev^ 
form becomes overwhelming in the minds of all thoughtful 
men; and, with the instantaneousness of instinct for self- 
preservation, the individual and collective mind springs to 
its own theories, as to arms. The burden of proof was with 
those who would in any way change the old constitution, so 
the bulk of the people were ready to entrench themselves in 
that product of nearly a hundred years of struggle to secure, 
develop and protect it. But of what did this bulk of the 
people consist, at least so far as activity is concerned ? So 
many of the Quakers were against war and also indepen- 
dence, that their activity was very largely reduced and that 
meant the activity of the old or eastern counties, and a con- 
sequent proportionate increase in the public activity of the 
new or western counties, in which dwelt so large a share of 
Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. Contributing to 
this same result was the tendency of the German population, 
which was so largely of religious principles similar to the 
Quakers, to follow them, as they had in the past. Con- 
tributing almost as strongly to this same result, likewise, 
was the tendency of so' many members of the Church of 
England, which the Protestant Episcopal Church then was, 
to sympathize with the British and so become the target of 
suspicion and actual enmity. The result was therefore an 
overwhelming Presbyterian leadership, and amongst that 
leadership, so far as the old constitution and its preservation 
was concerned, none equalled Judge Bryan in so tremendous 

111 



112 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

and conservative an influence. And it was of a quiet, un- 
ostentatious kind, due to his strong character and his pohti- 
cal and legal knowledge. It rose all the higher, because the 
other best-known leaders, like Dickinson, Franklin, Wilson, 
Morris and others, were occupied in the work of Congress 
and the army. Instinctively, the people turned to the advice 
of the Philadelphia jurist, whose name headed the protests 
of the Stamp Act Congress to King, Lords and Commons, 
— the man who had so long stood for the. old constitution 
against Franklin and the Quakers who tried in vain to make 
it a royal government. 

Another curiously overlooked vital fact in this whole 
matter is that these people looked upon their old constitu- 
tion as one of essential freedom, not so far different from a 
republic ; which, indeed, the Proprietary governors had often 
asserted to be their aim. From 1723 to 1763 — forty years 
— they had been so nearly republican, that, with the power 
of the purse so largely in Assembly hands, they were practi- 
cally in control of executive and judiciary, and were so 
seldom bothered with the imperial over-lordship that they 
were hardly conscious of it. The movement for indepen- 
dence therefore, to the untechnical minds of most of them, 
was merely much like those occasions, when a governor 
suddenly died or resigned, and the Executive Council, with 
one of their own number as President of it, became the 
executive — the whole government in the hands of the people. 
The chief difference would be that this Executive Council 
v/ould now be chosen by the people, for the people, from 
the people, instead of chosen ^3; the Proprietary, for the 
Proprietary, from the people ; while the comparatively unfelt 
imperial operations would merely be turned over to the new 
Congress. This also would of course vest all authority 
technically in the people ; but they had long felt that the 
authority was there essentially and practically anyhow, and 
they had been trained to consider essential freedom the 
main thing, also. The change would not be very great and 
would be chiefly technical. Indeed what was this war all 
about anyhow, if it wasn't that, since 1763, the British 
government had aimed to interfere with this essential free- 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 113 

dom? They had been satisfied before 1763, and would have 
been now, had it not been for the new Ministerial policy of 
the last dozen years ! This was the sentiment Judge Bryan 
had voiced and was to voice more than any other man ; aftd 
whether he would be in the Convention or not he was to be 
more responsible for the continuation of this old constitu- 
tion into the new order than anyone else, because he was the 
leader and organizer of the element who wanted it. For 
that was the kind of a Constitutional Convention they pro- 
posed to elect and they had no notion of any other. 

It may be recalled, that the tendency of the old constitu- 
tion of Pennsylvania was, essentially, to concentrate power 
in the single chamber Assembly ; essentially, not technically, 
for the technical restraints included, if desirable, the Gov- 
ernor, the Board of Trade, and King in Council, and the Pro- 
prietary had ways of securing restraint beyond these. But, 
when the people of Pennsylvania paid the executive and 
judiciary, and kept within imperial policy, it amounted to 
concentration of power in the Assembly — a condition that 
had been the objective of the people of Pennsylvania al- 
most ever since the beginning in 1682, and especially since 
the revolution of 1688; and had secured, as an essential 
actuality since 1723, so far as purely internal affairs were 
concerned. Now this was based somewhat on the English 
constitution and it was a favorite idea with many Quakers, 
as like the government of a Quaker Meeting. Furthermore, 
advocates of extreme democracy, an unrestrained democ- 
racy, have always seen in the concentration of power, in a 
single chamber legislature, the ideal of freedom; and the 
Turgot and DeMably schools of thought in France and the 
followers of Dr. Price in England at this period were giving 
voice to it as a theory of government more consistent with 
freedom than any other; and they have had disciples, it may 
be added, from that day to this in all countries in which 
democratic movements have any foot-hold at all ; and, it may 
also be added, that in that wing of modern political scien- 
tists, which is much influenced by admiration for British 
principles of political science, or practice, at least, it is the 
most popular theory today, for the whole tendency in the 



114 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

British empire is to concentrate power in the House of 
Commons. Consequently the people of Pennsylvania were 
aided in their purpose to keep the old constitution by the 
adherents of this school of thought. 

Who then were against it? For one, a once powerful, 
but now very much crippled element, the extreme followers 
of the Proprietary. They had never got over the loss of the 
Legislative Council, or upper chamber, which David Lloyd 
and his followers had destroyed by the constitution of 170L 
They did not have confidence in the common people and 
had looked upon that body as having the restraining influ- 
ence of the House of Lords in the British Parliament. Pro- 
prietary, Legislative Council and Assembly, in their tradi- 
tions, corresponded to King, Lords and Commons — a 
British constitution. These, however, were generally under 
suspicion as Tories and Royalists, and were somewhat of a 
negligible quantity, although whenever the ban should lift or 
they boldly came out for independence, they became a very 
material support to any more effective opposers of continu- 
ing the old constitution. 

Who then were the real opponents of a continuation of 
the old constitution? As a matter of fact, there was no 
organized opposition at this time. Those June and early 
July days of 1776 were so tense with war and the question 
of independence in Congress, where the best-known state 
leaders were occupied in one of the most critical struggles 
in American history, that there was no organized opposi- 
tion. And, indeed, it was only the appearance of the ques- 
tion of a form of government for the proposed Congres- 
sional union, that raised the question to any sort of opposi- 
tion, just at this particular time. Indeed, whatever opposi- 
tion there was was voiced chiefly in the Congressional east 
room, where preparations were making for a declaration of 
independence and union and a form of government. This 
was far more important of course than any state constitu- 
tion, to disi)lace a colonial one, could possibly be, and yet 
this latter question, for wholly difl!"erent reasons, was so full 
of explosive, that it was touched only with the greatest care 
and tact. This explosive quality was not because the 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 115 

learned element among the Congressmen did not know the 
principles of political science and government, so well set 
forth in that classic of the past twenty-five years, Montes- 
quieu's Spirit of the Lazvs, and similar works, which de- 
scribed what the best government should be, in form ; it was 
because the people of each colony were afraid of any real 
government beyond each state's own government, and they 
were only taking on provisional Congressional union because 
it was a necessity ; they were lost unless they did. They 
were as afraid of it as a United States Senator of 1919 was 
of a League of Nations, let alone a real international 
government, which was not to be thought of ! But, like the 
Americans of earlier date, the Senate was inclined for a 
time to accept with reservation even the oligarchial, pro- 
visional League of Nations, as a necessity. The learned 
element in the Congress, as Madison had occasion to say a 
decade later about John Adams' book advocating a govern- 
ment of the United States with separate single executive, 
double legislature and independent judiciary — knew that 
these things were "nothing new to learned men." They 
knew that every one of the colonies, except Pennsylvania, 
had that kind of a government, and it was taken for granted, 
so far as a single state was concerned, and Pennsylvania 
was looked upon as peculiar in its constitution; while any- 
thing else for a national union was looked upon by some 
of these men as impossible only because of the Great Fear 
among the people and their less learned leaders. Among 
these learned men were James Wilson, John Adams, Benja- 
min Rush and a few others, the first of whom quickly be- 
came recognized as the leader of those who were opposed 
to the old constitution of 1701, on the principles of political 
science. As he, however, had his hands full in Congress, 
over the questions of independence and interstate govern- 
ment, he could be no active force at this time in Pennsyl- 
vania's campaign for a Constitutional Convention ; and it 
would have done little good if he had been active, so strong 
was active public sentiment wholly for the old constitution. 
His sentiments soon became known, however, as to what 
he would have for both the union and the state and he 



116 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

thereupon became a marked man among the followers of 
Judge Bryan, adherents of the old constitution.^ 

Several other elements were calculated to insure the 
success of the adherents of the old constitution. Indeed it 
was so taken for granted that the chief idea expressed by 
the Provincial Conference on June, 19th, was to change 
"authority" only, from that on a British charter and Pro- 
prietary basis to "the authority of the people only" — a step 
that was merely a perfectly logical next step to all those 
taken since the struggle began in 1682. The "Associators" 
wholly dominated this conference, and the first test, as to 
who could vote, provided for them. Others were compelled 
to take a test oath foreswearing allegiance to the King or 
opposition to the new independence, and disqualifying all 
who had fallen under the ban of various revolutionary com- 
mittees. This, in itself would change the voting strength 
of the province — or "state," as it was now coming to be 
thought of — tremendously. Then again each county and 
the metropolis were to elect eight delegates, on the presump- 
tion that, as in the Conferences, vote would be by counties, 
which gave all counties, either thickly or sparsely popu- 
lated, an equal vote, thereby giving the back counties a 
great advantage — all of which contributed to the success of 
the followers of Judge Bryan. They were to be elected 
on the 8th of July and meet on the 15th, elect deputies to 
the Congress, who were to be free to vote for independence, 
and choose a Council of Safety as executive, this govern- 
ment automatically to displace the Assembly and Governor 
as soon as chosen. This declaration was done on the 24th 
of June, at Carpenters' Hall while Congress, in the east 
room of the State House was working on the declaration 
and a form of government to be adopted as soon as inde- 
pendence was voted. This was the action Congressman 
James Wilson had waited for, when he secured delay in 
action on independence until the people expressed them- 
selves, not only in this but in other colonies, thereby to 



' See The Life and Writings of James IVtJson, by Burton Alva Konkle, 
Vol. 1, Chap, viii, for fuller treatment of Congressional action, with which this 
narrative is less concerned. 



THE CONSTITUTIOx\AL CONVENTION 117 

secure unanimity. Then came the Congressional final vote 
that settled the matter on July 4th, when the first draft of 
the "Declaration" was first signed (the engrossed one not 
being signed until August 2nd) and a new nation, com- 
posed of the people of thirteen states, was created ; for the 
Declaration was one of independence and union, so that 
its last paragraph became the first embryo constitution of 
the "United States." It was published on the 6th — in the 
Pennsylvania Evening Post, and on the 8tli Pennsylvania 
elected her new Provincial Constitutional Convention, which 
was to take over the new state government on the 15th 
instant. 

The course of Mr. Wilson in working for unanimity 
for independence and in expressing himself on the form of 
government, of both union and state, most desirable as be- 
ing that well-known to students of political science and 
government, made public feeling of the adherents of the 
old constitution of 1701, both "Whigs" and, as the radical 
wing was called, "furious Whigs," so violent, that, on June 
20th, the leading men of Congress felt it necessary to issue 
a defense and description of his course.^ This served 
further to mark him, by the followers of Judge Bryan as 
one to be watched. It made, also, even before the Penn- 
sylvania Convention met. or was even elected, an irritation 
against the "learned" and so furnished a campaign slogan 
against theories of the "educated," as contrasted with the 
product of the people of Pennsylvania, which had been their 
boast for seventy-five years. This was given force, too. 
by the acceptance, here and there, of the popular ideas of 
Price, De Mably and Turgot, as has been said — a belief in 
the concentration of power in a single-chamber legislature, 
unrestrained. Restraint ! Why, hadn't that been the one 



^ The "Furious Whigs" were those radicals who were much influenced 
by French theories. They had organized the "Whig Society" quite early in 
the winter of 1775-6 and by April 1, 1776, when they met at Philosophical 
Hall, their committee of correspondence was composed of Charles Wilson Peale, 
the artist, Prof. James Cannon, of the College of Philadelphia, David Ritten- 
house, the astronomer, Dr. Thomas Young of Philadelphia and Maj. Thomas 
Paine, who was to become so famous as a patriot and sceptic, this last 
mentioned being no doubt the moving spirit in this body. Dr. Young it was 
who led Vermont to adopt the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 as her model, 
while he was a member of Congress for Pennsylvania. There is no evidence 
that Judge Bryan was a member of this society. 



118 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

thing the Assembly of Pennsylvania had been struggling to 
throw off ever since the founding of the colony nearly a 
hundred years before ! Restraint ! Why, the very consti- 
tution of 1701 was itself the destruction of a second legis- 
lative chamber ! And hadn't they fought to prevent the 
Proprietary executive "Council of State" from assuming 
the powers of a second chamber for seventy-five years! 
The whole genius of the constitution of 1701 was against 
restraint of a second chamber, even if, as it was before 1701, 
elected by the people ! In fact they were a hundred years 
ahead of Great Britain in the constitutional theory of con- 
centration of power in a single chamber! It was not a 
mere theory; it was a constitutional condition, gloried in 
and boasted of as a settled, established fact, for three- 
quarters of a century! Restraint! Why, it was the Crown, 
before 1688 — the hated Crown; the Crown and its organ 
the Board of Trade, disallowing their laws, after 1688, also ; 
and the Proprietary obstruction, too ; and now, since 1763, 
the most heartily hated Parliament — these all stood for re- 
straint! And now, if any stood for restraint, what was 
he but a detestable Tory ! Let all the other states have 
organs of restraint if they choose; it was not the constitu- 
( tional genius or political tradition of the Quaker common- 
wealth — even when dominated by Presbyterians, for they 
, . . concentrated legislative, executive and judicial power in one 

[/ ,// ' ' body, ecclesiastically, just as the Quakers did. 
yi Therefore, when on July 15th, the newly elected Pro- 

vincial Constitutional Convention met at the west room of 
the State House, it became the provisional government of 
Pennsylvania, in place of the Provincial Conference which 
had assumed a part of government, when, on June 14th, the 
Assembly adjourned to August, without carrying out cer- 
tain Congressional measures. While it was organizing, the 
Congress, across the hall in the east room, was considering, 
under the leadership of John Dickinson, a confederational 
constitution of the same sort, concentrating all power in a 
^ ■ \., single chamber Congress, with the states having equal votes, 

whatever their size, just as this Convention was supposed 
to do. Air. Dickinson, however, was not to succeed so 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 119 

easily in getting such a constitution in the presence of so 
many learned men, as the followers of Judge Bryan were 
in the other room. These latter were so overwhelmingly 
in control, and were so comparatively unknown men outside 
of their own counties, that they could choose for Presi- 
dent of the Convention the one man of fame among them, 
the aged Dr. Franklin, and know that he would not dare 
oppose the old constitution and yet would be compelled to 
give it the prestige of his great name. David Rittenhouse 
and Col. George Ross of Lancaster, and Col. James Smith 
of York were almost the only other men who were known 
over the state. Such a situation would be strange under 
ordinary conditions, but these were times when the strength 
of the state was largely in the army or in Congressional 
management. There was little to do, however, so far as the 
constitution was concerned ; nothing, indeed, but to transfer 
the "authority" part of the old constitution to the people 
alone. They had a form already, the one heretofore used 
on the suddent death or incapacity of a governor, namely, 
an Executive Council, of which one was chosen President 
of it, and the Assembly, with the well established judiciary 
system of 1722. All they needed to do was to provide for 
the election of that Executive Council by the people and 
the thing was done. 

As this change of government was occasioned by the 
action of Congress, whose guidance the colonies followed, 
and the declaration of the right of independence, signed ten 
days before, was the basis of it, they set a committee of 
eleven — one from each county — at work on the 18th on a 
similar "declaration of rights" — 1. freedom and indepen- 
dence; 2. freedom of worship; 3. State rights against all 
outside control ; 4. accountability of officers ; 5. forming 
government; 6. right of election; 7. freedom to elect or 
be elected ; 8. right of protection and duty in sharing in 
providing it; 9. criminal trial by jury; 10. freedom from 
arbitrary search; 11. civil trial by jury; 12. freedom of 
speech and press; 13. civil subordination of the military; 

14. demand adherence of officers to fundamental principles;' 

15. emigration; and 16. free assemblage and petition. On 



120 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

these points there was no disagreement, so on the 24th they 
appointed the same gentlemen to "draw up an essay for a 
frame" — an old Pennsylvania name for constitution — "or 
system of government;" but, the first move toward this part 
of the convention's work began to show differences, and 
the influence of James Wilson's friends, like Col. Ross, Col. 
Thomas Smith of Bedford, Col. James Smith of York, and 
one or two others ; whereupon six new men were added to 
the committee, after endorsement of the Congressional 
declaration of independence on July 25th, all of whom — 
Col. Matlack, Professor James Cannon of the Mathematics 
chair of the College of Philadelphia, Col. Potter, Astrono- 
mer Rittenhouse, Robert Whitehill of Cumberland county 
(who was to become, if he wasn't already. Judge Bryan's 
right hand man) and Col. Galbreath of Lancaster — were 
solid for the old constitution and against the James Wilson 
followers, a procedure which insured no miscarriage of the 
plans for preserving the old constitution on a people's basis. 
The last three days of July and the first two of August 
were hot days in more senses than one, for in the west room 
the fight was to a finish for a government of concentration 
of power in a single chamber Assembly, while in the east 
room the Congress was in a fight to a finish over the "one- 
state one-vote" question, both the most critical questions 
that were to come up in the two rooms, in the formation of 
state and nation for the next dozen years — a result, that day, 
which practically decided that it would take a dozen years 
to produce the two governments in their final form.^ The 
single chamber concentration of power won out in both 
rooms and the one-state one-vote also, for the present. Judge 
Bryan's followers, in the west room, and Publicist Dickin- 
son and his followers in the east room won against the in- 
fluence of James Wilson and his friends, in both rooms. 
The former won by positive acceptance of the single cham- 
ber idea on August 2nd, the day the engrossed copy of the 
Declaration of Independence and Union was signed, and 

^ The authority of the old government and courts having ceased, the Con- 
vention, on August 1, 1776, provided for special hearing and release ot prison- 
ers in the state jails by appointing special judges for each county, Judge George 
Bryan being the first one named in the ordinance, for Philadelphia County. 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 121 

the other won by a negative decision against the Wilson ideas, 
and a delay, which kept any form of government from be- 
ing accepted until the war was nearly over, except the em- 
bryo union under the Declaration and Congress as organ 
of it. 

Once the single chamber was decided upon, all was de- 
cided and the formulation of the principles of the old con- 
stitution was a mere matter of detail, either to those con- 
servatives who merely stood for the old constitution or 
those radical enthusiasts who stood for the extreme democ- 
racy of a single chamber concentration of power, such as 
Professor James Cannon of the chair of Mathematics in 
the College of Philadelphia, who proved to be the best writer 
among the active leading members, and is said to have fur- 
nished more of the phraseology of the formulation of the 
old constitutional principles than anyone else. He was a 
Scotchman, born in Edinburgh, and was thirty-six years old. 
He had entered the College of Philadelphia in 1764. the 
year Judge Bryan was chosen to the Assembly and the 
Stamp Act Congress, and for the past three years he had 
filled the chair of Mathematics. All he furnished, however, 
was some of the language, for he seemed to be one of the 
most extreme radicals, one of whom was reported to have 
said that "men of education and learning should have no 
rule, in a democratic system ; they always did mischief by 
introducing checks on the national impulses of the people." 
And Professor Cannon, himself, in a public meeting attacked 
"all learning as an artificial restraint on the human under- 
standing" : he "had done with it ; and advised our sovereign 
lords, the people, to choose no lazvyers, or other professional 
characters, called educated or learned ; but to select men un- 
educated, with unsophisticated understandings." He said 
he "should be glad to forget the trumpery which occupied 
so much of his life."^ So while he supported the Bryan 
program for dififerent reasons from Judge Bryan, he still 
supported it, as did other radicals, but only furnished lan- 
guage. For Judge Bryan was no radical in any such sense 
as this ; indeed he was the conservative of conservatives, 

^ Brown and Peters' Biography of the Signers, Vol. Ill, p. 276. ■' S 



122 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

and kept an easy hand on his followers. Most of this out- 
break against learning and education, however, sprang from 
opposition to the arguments of men of learning in political 
and governmental science, who advocated principles of self- 
restraint with the appropriate organs of self-restraint in 
government, such as two houses of legislature, separation of 
executive, legislative and judicial functions, and courts of 
review, a system of checks and balances, self-imposed. And 
these latter had been expressed more outside of the Con- 
vention room than inside, especially in the press and in the 
Congress across the hall. The Bryan control of the great 
majority in the Convention was so complete that there was 
little question then worth considering, judging from the re- 
sults. And by control is meant a remarkable confidence in 
Judge Bryan felt by all who knew him and believed in the 
old constitution as he did, a confidence that was soon to be 
publicly shown in one of the most remarkable instances of 
leadership in the history of any self-governing state. In- 
deed the character of Judge Bryan's leadership is, in some 
respects, remarkably like that of the great father of the old 
constitution, David Lloyd. Both were men of quiet strength, 
inspiring confidence in their followers to an unusual degree ; 
of fine, high types of Christian character ; conservative 
lovers of the great basis of liberty in constitution and law ; 
especially the great common law ; self-educated largely, but 
soundly educated ; both with large understanding of men 
and institutions ; both of great tenacity of purpose ; both 
expert in drawing of legal papers; both somewhat narrow in 
the line of a general culture ; both capable of inspiring great 
afifection ; both were capable of riding out the greatest storm, 
and were unmoved in the midst of it. 

It is well, however, to recall, at this point in the Con- 
vention, the difference between Judge Bryan and David 
Lloyd, so far as the constitution of 1701 is concerned, for 
it bears on the difiference betv/een Judge Bryan's and James 
Wilson's political philosophy. David Lloyd aimed at the 
British principles of legislative control of executive by the 
power of the purse and an independent or "good behavior" 
tenure of the judiciary, whatever the technical claims to 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 123 

authority by any other source of power. This was essential 
freedom, but not technical freedom, and he recognized the 
several elements of restraint — such as actually did exist, in 
interested advocacy and resistance in Governor, and the 
Crown and Board of Trade, but he apparently accepted 
these restraints when they were just. Up to 1776, Judge 
Bryan had accepted this theory also ; but in that year he 
seems to have seen the disappearance of all authority and 
restraint above the Assembly, or rather the people, and 
thought of it as only a barnacle, which had so long been oJi 
that it had seemed a part of the ship of state, and now 
merely gave the people an unrestrained freedom, which was 
really their birthright anyhow. He looked at the new con- 
dition somewhat as a young man does who, at twenty-one, 
suddenly feels the snapping of all the ties of authority and 
restraint and acts freely upon life as it comes. David Lloyd 
never had occasion to face this problem, and no one knows 
what attitude he might have had. It was what James Wil- 
son would have thought a naive faith in unrestrained human 
nature ; he looked upon the new condition, also like the 
young man, freed from imposed restraint or rules of guid- 
ance from above, but absolutely under the highest of obliga- 
tions to adopt self-imposed principles and organs of restraint 
for times of trial, in their place. Therefore he would have 
legislative provisions like the judicial provision of a court 
of review, namely, a second chamber — for he was as un- 
willing to confide his liberties to the limitations of one legis- 
lative body as to one judicial one. Nor was he willing to 
let the law-maker execute or interpret the law he had made, 
and apply it, for he would be liable to confuse the two, or 
possibly three, operations, and so corrupt them. He was 
unwilling that a law-making body should handle the money 
it appropriated, when the executive was an equal organ of 
the people, for it was dangerous, in the same way. In other 
words, James Wilson stood for what has since come to be 
American political science, and George Bryan stood for the 
other great school of political thought, the centralization of 
power in one body, the theory whose chief representative is 



124 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

now the British empire, where the House of Commons has 
centrahzecl all power in itself/ 

With this introduction to the formulation of the old 
constitution on the new basis of the people's authority, 
which was provided for on July 24th, with the additional 
gentlemen provided on the 25th July, to insure safety, one 
is prepared to understand what was actually done. The 
draft was reported out on August 19th to be considered on 
Wednesday, the 21st. Of course this Convention, as the 
temporary government of Pennsylvania, could not devote 
all its time to the new formulation, so that it was not re- 
ported out from Committee of the Whole, with orders to 
Dr. Franklin, Astronomer Rittenhouse and Mr. Vanhorn to 
smooth off any accidental roughness and print 400 copies, 
until Thursday, September 5th. For the next ten days, 
while the new formulation was being prepared, the Con- 
vention was engaged in governmental business, but on the 
16th, when the new draft was laid before them in print. Col. 
George Ross of Lancaster and Mr. George Clymer, both 
followers of Congressman James Wilson, again attempted 
to secure reconsideration of the principle of centralization 
of power in a single chamber, but it was promptly silenced 
by a resolution that this had all been settled once for all on 
August 1st and 2nd. 

For a week they were engaged in government business, 
but on the 25th of September, the man who, in consultation 
with Judge Bryan, had been most active in formulation of 
the new form of the old constitution, Professor Cannon, 
was also made chairman of a Committee on Preamble and 
Test Oaths and Affirmations, the results of which were 
adopted the same day. The next day was spent in prepara- 

^ It should be recalled at this point that Chief Justice McKean was as 
much a follower of Mr. Bryan at this time, and for long afterwards, as he 
was of James Wilson in 1787 and long afterwards. He was a Delawarean, in 
the days when Delaware was a quasi-Pennsylvania colony, with the same 
governor. So that he did not take initiative in either case, although in each 
case he was a strong, right-hand man of both leaders, in their opposite theories 
of constitution. If any proof of his following Judge Bryan absolutely were 
needed, one has to recall that McKean wrote the Delaware constitution of 1776 
himself and, as is well known, made its legislature bi--icameral, so that he cer- 
tainly did not influence Mr. Bryan's followers on that point — ^the only one of 
any moment. Delaware had the same constitution as Pennsylvania, from 1701, 
made under David Lloyd's direction, but the Delawareans were more inclined 
to the old legislative Council rather than an executive one alone, and so was 
McKean, as he showed in 1787. 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 125 

tion for putting the new machinery in operation by election 
on the 5th of November to meet on the 19th of that month. 
On the 28th Professor Cannon was made chairman of a 
Committee on revision of the minutes and the new formu- 
lation of the old constitution was published as the funda- 
mental law of the commonwealth. 

What are the characteristics of this new formulation? 
It was called "The Constitution of the Commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania" — and it was, except in basis of authority, 
essentially the old constitution of the past seventy-five years 
— not in language, but in political form and principles. Pro- 
fessor Cannon had, in his Preamble, plainly said it was 
done "agreeable to the directions of the honorable American 
Congress," and by the authority of the people of Pennsyl- 
vania, vested in this Convention for that purpose, they do 
"ordain, declare and establish the following declaration of 
rights and frame of government, to be the constitution of 
this commonwealth, and to remain in force therein for ever 
unaltered," except as it shall need revision. 

Passing over the "declaration," which has already been 
noted, the "Plan or Frame" — for they use the traditional 
term for constitution in Pennsylvania — is seen to consist of 
47 sections, not arranged in Articles. This produced an 
instrument much larger than the old form, which, if Mr. 
Penn's political and moral essays were omitted, is very short 
indeed. This was natural, since the old constitution 'in- 
cluded both the charter of 1701 and all its supporting laws; 
so that the new form included both the charter principles 
and those of the supporting laws, both adapted to the new 
basis of authority. The language savors a good deal of the 
schoolmaster and theorist, naturally, and arrangement, by 
its absence, would seem to have been some of the "trump- 
ery" which Professor Cannon was trying successfully to 
forget. However, the principles of the old constitution were 
put in, the part in which Judge Bryan was most interested. 
The "government" was to be an Assembly and Executive 
Council, the judiciary evidently being thought of as a part 
of the executive function, as indeed it always had been. 
The new circumstances made one new addition. Sec. 5, an 



126 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

expression of the source of power in the Associators of the 
past several years, namely, providing for universal military 
training, even to minors — a curious insertion at this point, 
but representing the real power of the revolution in Penn- 
sylvania : this was now no Quaker state. 

Fourteen sections were given to the Assembly. And 
one feature stands out plainly not only in these sections but 
in the whole instrument, namely, rotation in ofince and fear 
of one man holding more than one office. The Assembly 
was to choose the Treasurer of the state and "their other 
officers," except such as they choose to leave to executive 
appointment, like judges, Attorney-General and the like. 
As in the old constitution they intended to have the power 
of the purse wholly in the Assembly. Each Assemblyman 
must take oath or affirmation of his loyal purposes and be- 
lief in the "Divine Inspiration" of the Bible. They were to 
choose the state's Congressmen annually, "forever after- 
wards as long as such representation shall he necessary." 
Important bills were to be published as a kind of submission 
to the people — also a relic of the early constitutions. Repre- 
sentation was to be "in proportion to taxables," not popula- 
tion. 

But four sections are devoted to the Supreme Execu- 
tive Council, with the two members of it chosen as President 
and Vice-President of it, unless the ten or more devoted to 
the judiciary be included. Here was the great change from 
the old to the new, for the Executive Council was to be 
twelve persons, one from each county and one from Phila- 
delphia city, elected by the people, as in Penn's constitutions 
before 1701, and one of these was to be selected, in a joint 
meeting of Council and Assembly as President of the Execu- 
tive Council, and one as Vice-President, so that the two 
leaders of the Executive Council were really chosen by the 
Assembly, the larger body, thus tending to concentrate even 
executive control in the one body ; i. e., the people chose the 
purely Executive Council, but from these, the Assembly, 
practically, chose the executive officer of the executive body. 
For the President and Vice-President were not the execu- 
tive ; they were only the voice of the executive; /. e., the 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 127 

Council. Their acts were only the acts of the Council, which 
was the real executive of the acts of Assembly, with no 
power over those laws, but mere execution of them. As has 
been said, this gave precisely such an executive as Mr. Penn's 
Governor and Executive Council, except that now the people 
chose both Governor and Council and the Assembly, practi- 
cally, chose the Governor from the Council ; i. e., decided 
which ones of the Council should be its President and Vice- 
President. The Council appointed and commissioned judges, 
and other legal officers not chosen by the Assembly. They 
were to be a court of impeachment. It is well to take special 
note of the nature of this Council and their President and 
Vice-President, for they are of great moment to this narra- 
tive. This was the same old Council of the old constitution, 
when a Proprietary Governor was incapacitated by death, 
illness or absence, or during an interregnum, except that it 
was chosen by the people and its chief executive chosen by 
the Assembly, thus concentrating all legislative and much 
executive and judicial power in the latter body. 

The judiciary, composed of the Supreme Court, the 
county courts and the Admiralty court, or other courts to 
be created, were now appointed by the Executive as before, 
but for fixed terms and good behavior — the Executive itself 
being now the people's, not the Proprietary executive. The 
Supreme and Common Pleas courts were to have both com- 
mon law and equity powers, a peculiarly Pennsylvania in- 
stitution. In these sections, as well as in many others, much 
was put in that should only be put in laws rather than con- 
stitution. Some were of the nature of items in a Bill of 
Rights or constitutional limitation, and it seemed very easy 
for Professor Cannon to drop into essay, political or moral, 
in writing a section, as, in Section 36 : "As every freeman, 
to preserve his independence (if without a sufficient estate), 
ought to have some profession, calling, trade or farm, 
whereby he may honestly subsist, there can be no necessity 
for nor use in establishing offices of profit, the usual effects 
of which are dependence and servility, unbecoming freemen, 
in the possessors and expectants, faction, contention, cor- 
ruption and disorder among the people : but if any man is 



128 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

called into public service to the prejudice of his private af- 
fairs, he has a right to a reasonable compensation : and when- 
ever an office, through increase of fees, or otherwise be- 
comes so profitable as to occasion many to apply for it, the 
profits ought to be lessened by the legislature." This section 
seems to say : "Official compensation shall be reasonable," 
a thing that might be taken for granted and left out of a 
constitution ; yet it expressed some of the vague enthusiasm 
for ideals of justice that enthusiasts like the Professor Can- 
non wing of conservators of the old constitution sincerely 
felt. Judge Bryan could endure much of this provided he 
got the essentials of the old constitution, and so far as the 
sentiments were concerned, as sentiments, he was thoroughly 
in sympathy with them. Section 38 used 37 words to say 
that the penal laws shall be reformed — another section not 
pertinent to a constitution. Section 39 said that hard labor 
penitentiaries "ought to be" provided — not "shall be" — 
for crimes less than capital, as a sort of object lesson to 
visitors, who, also, were provided for. In fact these 
"ought" sections are not uncommon. Some miscellaneous 
sections provide for naturalization, freedom to hunt and fish, 
encouragement of public morals, religion and education, even 
providing Assembly-created public schools to a certain de- 
gree — freedom of the press, etc. The Declaration of Rights 
was declared a part of the constitution. 

The most striking new feature, due no doubt to a desire 
to meet the opinion of those who considered this a wholly 
unself-restrained constitution that needed some sort of 
balance wheel, was the 47th, or last, section devoted to 
amendment of this constitution. This was to be done at 
seven-year intervals through the instrumentality of an elec- 
tive body, just twice as large as the Executive Council, to 
be called "The Council of Censors," the majority to he a 
qiionijii, in all cases except the calling of a constitutional 
convention, and this body was to exist one year. They were 
to be a general investigating committee, with power to order 
impeachment, recommend repeal of laws, pass public cen- 
sures, to call a convention to amend details, which details 
are to be published for general consideration. There is every 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 129 

probability that Judge Bryan was responsible for this fea- 
ture, for a mere majority of this body of twenty-four mem- 
bers could hold the old constitution against all aggression. 
It was the new feature, par excellence, and was designed 
chiefly as an insurance on the life of the old Pennsylvania 
constitution. Amendment to the old constitution must come 
through the Council of Censors alone, and a majority could 
control it. This is evidence of the able and bitter opposi- 
tion that Judge Bryan and his party saw brewing in the 
learned young lawyer from Carlisle, James Wilson of the 
Congressional Board of War, and his friends in both state 
and union ; and it is safe to say that it was to prove the 
most remarkable and sensational constitutional conflict in 
any state in American history, and was destined to become 
a national affair — a national affair of the greatest moment as 
a lesson to our own time in international affairs. Indeed 
it was destined to have not only a great influence on the 
attempt then making to secure a real national government 
but was itself to be seriously affected by that attempt. The 
Council of Censors' provision of the 47th Section, was the 
citadel of the old Lloydean constitution of 1701 in its new 
form, and about it was to rage a battle even to blood-shed, 
and for many a year. 



CHAPTER X 

Vice-President George Bryan of Pennsylvania 

1776 

No one can understand the career of Judge Bryan as 
a leader who fails to grasp one particular feature of his 
character, which he had in common with his great prede- 
cessor, David Lloyd. It was a moral force of character of 
great tenacity of purpose ; and a detachment or poise of 
mind that seemed to ignore non-essential persons and 
events with an easy confidence in the main purpose on which 
his mind was set. He inspired a like confidence in his fol- 
lowers, somewhat as Lloyd did also, and, in like manner 
absorbed easily a complete guidance and dominance — a 
phenomenon well illustrated, in some ways, in the career of 
a great chief executive of our own day. He had been ex- 
ercising this quality for many years, in a quiet unostenta- 
tious way, while he was a merchant, a public officer, a 
jurist and Port Naval Officer, and now it was to be done 
officially and in the lime-light. 

Three weeks before the new constitution was proclaimed, 
the Constitutional Convention, on September 3rd, reorgan- 
ized the local judiciary by new appointments: this was done 
to insure a judiciary in sympathy with the revolution and to 
give members of the Council and Committees of Safety 
powers of a Justice of the Peace. For Philadelphia city and 
county, the list of appointments for the courts was headed 
by "Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, George Bryan." 
which shows the standing of Judge Bryan in the new state 
government and Constitutional Convention, bracketted as he 
was with the two most famous men in Pennsylvania, if not 
in the whole American union, the one President of the Con- 
vention itself and the other a leading Congressman. The 
Convention had seen to it, also, that their majority kept a 

130 



A PENNSYLVANIA VICE-PRESIDENT 131 

vigorous dozen members in the old Assembly to keep it 
under their eye, and on July 24th reorganized the Council 
of Safety, making their own active men like Astronomer 
Rittenhouse, Professor Cannon and Colonel Matlack domi- 
nant there, re-organizing it still more on August 7th, making 
Thomas Wharton, Jr., President of it and Mr. Rittenhouse, 
Vice-President, where before they had had mere temporary 
chairmen. This body was really the commonwealth military 
executive, the strong arm of the Convention. 

With the promulgation of the revised Constitution on 
September 28th, without submission of it to the people for 
ratification, the month of October was a month of as much 
uproar as the alarming necessities of the war would allow. ^ 
By the 21st and 22nd of that month a mass-meeting was 
held at the State House in two sessions, with Colonel John 
Bayard as chairman. Among other things they protested 
that the Convention exceeded its powers ; "That the said 
Constitution unnecessarily deviates from all resemblance to 
the former government of this state, to which people have 
been accustomed;" that "the people did not desire sach 
strange innovations, but only that the Kingly, parliamentary 
and proprietary powers should be totally abolished, and such 
alterations made as would thereby be rendered necessary, 
so that a well-formed government might be established solely 
on the authority of the people ;" that it differed "in many 
iniportant articles from every government that has lately 
been established in America on the authority of the people — 
from the sentiments of the Honorable the Continental Con- 
gress respecting government — and from those of the most 
distinguished authors, who have deliberately considered that 
subject." At this point they add an elaborate foot-note, so 
illuminating, that it should be read with the text : They 
say it diflfers in that, "1st, it establishes only a single legisla- 
tive body; 2ndly, it renders the judicial department depen- 
dent on that single legislative body, who may remove any 
judge from his ofiice without trial, for anything they may 

1 In a sense the State of Pennsylvania had no government from September 
28th until the election on November 5th and no regular government until 
March S, 1777, a period of over five months. Of course the Council of Safetj' 
was the military govertunent. 



132 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

please to call misbehavior ; 3rdly, it renders the executive de- 
pendent on that single legislative body, by whom alone the 
executive officers are to be paid for their services, and by 
whom, from the great disproportion between the numbers of 
the Assembly and Council, the President and Vice-President 
must always be annually chosen, — besides, that every officer, 
executive or judicial, may be impeached by the Assembly, 
before six of the Council thus dependent on the Assembly, 
and be tried and condemned. 4thly, it erects no Court of 
Appeals, more necessary here than in some other states, as 
our Supreme Court may try causes in the first instance, and 
finally determine them, so that there is no mode settled for 
correcting their errors." 

The foot-note continues : It "differs from the sentiments 
of the Honorable Congress in rendering ei'ery judge in the 
state entirely dependent on the single legislative body. For 
in the first petition" one of the grievances was "The judges 
of Courts of Common law have been made entirely de- 
pendent on one part of the legislature for their salaries, 
as well as the duration of their commissions ;" and the Con- 
gress had said that power should be "separated and dis- 
tributed" into "dift'erent hands, for checks upon one an- 
other," in their address to Canada. Indeed it could be said, 
they say, that the executive, judicial and legislative powers 
are "united in one body." They then quote Montesquieu 
and Addison on this point. 

Returning to their other objections: the sins of omis- 
sion and commission in the new instrument are numerous; 
it is confused, inconsistent and dangerous; that it ought to 
be at once altered and amended ; that it provided no free 
mode of amendment, as the Censorship is designed to keep 
it ; that the people were given no time for consideration or 
ratification, and so the Convention did not know whether it 
would be satisfactory to the people ; that the Convention 
have fastened it on the people against their will for seven 
years ; that their test oaths are unprecedented violation of 
liberty on the American continent; that the people are dis- 
satisfied with it generally ; that it is responsible for the recent 
great numbers and insolence of the disaft'ected Tories ; 



A PENNSYLVANIA VICE-PRESIDENT 133 

that it must be changed at once ; and they propose that elec- 
tors refuse to take the oath on November 5th; that judges, 
and Assemblymen ought to do likewise ; that the Assembly 
ought to make the necessary changes ; in other words be 
itself a new Constitutional Convention; that they shall sub- 
mit the result to the people ; and finally that no Councillors 
at all should be chosen on November 5th. 

This was very much like a counter-revolution, and 
so far as Philadelphia city and county was concerned no 
Councillors were chosen at all and no prescribed oaths taken. 
The new Assembly gathered at its rooms on the 28th, how- 
ever, but without a quorum until the 29th, November, and 
the old Council of Safety with Thomas Wharton, Jr., as 
President and Mr. Rittenhouse as Vice-President was practi- 
cally made the executive. On November 11th, this Council 
were informed of the advance of General Howe toward 
Philadelphia and the Flying Camp took many from these 
various civil positions for the time being. By December 
12th, the Congress became so alarmed that they notified the 
Council of Safety that they proposed removing to Balti- 
more, to meet there on the 20th, and the new Assembly 
was without a quorum for the same reason from Decem- 
ber 14, 1776, until January 13, 1777.^ This made some new 
elections necessary and on the 14th of February, Thomas 
Wharton, Jr., was chosen a Councillor for the county, and 
foi'r new Assembly members chosen, and the city had its 
election on the 21st, when Judge Bryan was chosen its mem- 



^-Judge Bryan's eldest son, Samuel, a boy of sixteen, writes his father a 
letter about this time, January 26, 1777, from near Williamsburg, Va., where 
he was, apparently on an errand of a business nature that indicates some of 
the ability he was to show later. "They have laid a very heavy tax in Vir- 
ginia" he writes, "on all estates real and personal, bonds, loan office [cer- 
tificates?] &c., it being one per cent, on every hundred pounds a man is 
worth. They have also passed an act to draught five thousand unmarried men 
out of Virginia to join the army by March next, besides 5000 Volunteers. Great 
quantities of salt arriving continually; 15 vessells having arrived 3 or 4 days 
ago with that and other articles at South Key. A gentleman just from Wil- 
liamsburg says that 15 Bermudians are arrived at South Key. There are 7 
on the eastern shore all loaded with salt. I am in hopes necessary articles 
will be brought down to a reasonable price. 

"The road[s] in Virginia are very level and sandy, but excessively blind 
to a stranger, the great roads being but 30 feet broad, which is the breadth of 
all the bye roads, and no house to enquire at for sometimes six miles together; 
however, I have pushed through at last. . . . 

Your Dutiful and 
Affectionate Son 

Saml Bryan" 
— George Bryan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 



134 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

ber of the Executive Council.^ Ten days later, on March 
4th, six of the twelve members of the new Executive Coun- 
cil, Judge Bryan not present, met in the Council room on 
the second-floor west room, the Assembly then having the 
east second-floor room, over the Congress below, and they 
notified the Assembly of their readiness to join them in the 
Assembly room to elect the Council's President and Vice- 
President, which they proceeded to do that morning. The 
six Councillors were merged into the forty-six Assembly- 
men and a test vote the previous day showed twenty-nine to 
seventeen — on what appeared to be a party vote, that the 
twenty-nine were able to run executive, legislature and 
judiciary as they pleased. They promptly chose the two 
Philadelphia Councillors to the chief and vice-chief executive 
ofiices, President Thomas Wharton, Jr., of the Council 
of Safety as President of the Executive Council and Port 
Ofiicer, Judge George Bryan, the city Councillor, as Vice- 
President ; and it was ordered that at noon of the following 
day they should be proclaimed at the Court House balcony 
at Second and Market Streets. 

Therefore, on Wednesday noon, March 5, 1777, a pro- 
cession formed at the State House headed by constables 
with their staves, sub-sherififs following; then the High 
Sheriff and Coroner, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the As- 
sembly, followed by the Speaker and Clerk, Assemblymen, 
President Wharton and Vice-President Bryan, other mem- 
bers of the Supreme Executive Council, and members of 
the Council of Safety and Navy Board. On reaching the 
balcony, the sheriff commanded silence, whereupon Presi- 
dent Wharton and Speaker John Jacobs of Chester came 
forward, while the clerk read the election proclamation, and 
President Wharton announced the ceremony closed amidst 
the acclamations of the people and the thunders of thirteen 
brass field pieces captured from the Hessians at Trenton. 
The returning procession was the same except that Presi- 
dent Wharton, Vice-President Bryan and the other mem- 



1 On the same day the county judges were elected according to the consti- 
tution and Judge Bryan and Benjamin Paschall were chosen from the Dock 
Ward. 



A PENNSYLVANIA VICE-PRESIDENT 135 

bers of the Supreme Executive Council preceded the 
Speaker and Assembly. 

They did not return directly to the State House, but 
proceeded down Second Street to just above Walnut Street, 
at the southwest corner of what is now Moravian and 
Second Streets, to the City Tavern, the chief commercial 
and general social hostelry of that day and for long after — 
a building on the site of the Philadelphia home of David 
Lloyd and just across the street from the old "Slate-Roofed 
House," once the executive mansion of William Penn. The 
Assembly were hosts to the dinner which followed and 
members of Congress then in the city and United States 
army officers were special guests. As dinner closed, toasts 
were drunk amidst the distant sounds of cannon and the 
ringing of the bells of the city. Some of the subjects were: 
1. The United States of America; 2. The Congress; 3. 
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; 4. General Washing- 
ton and the Army of the United States; 5. The Navy of 
the United States; 6. The Friends of Liberty in all Parts 
of the World ; 7. Perpetual Union and Strict Friendship 
Among the States of America ; 8. The Arts and Sciences ; 
9. Agriculture; 10. Trade and Navigation; IL The 
Memory of the Brave Patriots, of. All Ranks, who have 
Gloriously Fallen in Their Country's Cause; 12. May 
Every American Know His True Interest; 13. May Jus- 
tice, Firmness, and Humanity ever characterize Americans ; 
14. May Human Knowledge, Virtue and Happiness receive 
their last Perfection in America; 15. May Every Private 
Consideration Give Way to the Means of our Public De- 
fense ; 16. General Lee and all our Friends in Captivity ; 
and finally, 17, Dr. Franklin (who was now seventy years 
old). With this event the revolution in Pennsylvania was 
considered established, for notwithstanding dark days, there 
was every confidence as to the outcome of the struggle, of 
which the reverberation of the captured Hessian cannon 
seemed an omen. 

President Wharton belonged to a very prominent family 
of Philadelphia. His brother, John, was on the Navy Board 
of Pennsylvania. His uncle, Joseph, known as "Duke 



136 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Wharton," because of his noble bearing, was a prominent 
merchant, as he was himself. His cousin, Samuel, was also 
a big importer and one of the owners of the colony of Indi- 
ana, which was almost established in what is now West 
Virginia, when the war opened. President Wharton, him- 
self, was a leader in the Stamp Act non-importation, on the 
Committee of Correspondence in 1774, one of the Com- 
mittee of Safety of 1775, and President of the Council of 
Safety in 1776. He therefore naturally became the first 
head of the executive of the state, but it was for his execu- 
tive prowess alone. Vice-President Bryan was chosen for 
other reasons. He was a legal leader for the Council, he 
was the leader of the great body that clung to the old con- 
stitution and had attempted to formulate it in the constitu- 
tion of 1776. This constitution, said Alexander Graydon, 
a somewhat cynical critic of the Vice-President, in his 
Memoirs, "was understood to have been principally the 
work of Mr. George Bryan, in conjunction with a Mr. Can- 
non, a schoolmaster, and it was severely reprobated by 
those who thought checks and balances necessary to a 
legitimate distribution of the powers of government. Doctor 
Franklin was also implicated in its production ; and either 
his participation in it, or approbation of it, was roundly 
asserted by its fautors. The Doctor, perhaps a skeptic in 
relation to forms of government, and ever cautious of com- 
mitting himself, had thrown out an equivoque about a wagon, 
with horses, drawing in opposite directions. . . . But 
whether he meant by his rustic allusion, to show his appro- 
bation of checks or otherwise, is an enigma that has never 
been solved ; nor is it worth the trouble of solution."^ "With 
respect to Mr. Bryan," this cynical, but interesting critic 
continues, "so conspicuous at this era in the home [Penn- 
sylvania] department, he was one of those, whose memory 
treasures up small things, with even more care than great 
ones. He was said to be a very diligent reader, and was 
certainly a never weary talker, who, in the discourses he 
held, seldom failed to give evidence of an acquaintance with 
the most minute, recondite, and out-of-the-way facts ; inso- 

1 Memoirs Of His Own Time, etc, 2nd Ed., p. 285. 



A PENNSYLVANIA VICE-PRESIDENT 137 

much, that a bet was once offered, that he could name the 
tovvn-cryer of Bergen-op-Zoom. As Ireland had given him 
birth, he was probably like the bulk of his emigrating coun- 
trymen, in the antipodes at all points, to whatever was En- 
glish ; and a staunch patriot, of course. It was, moreover, 
his passion or policy, to identify himself with the people, 
in opposition to those, who were termed the zvell-born, a 
designation conceived in the genuine spirit of democracy, 
and which it may be supposed, did yeoman's service to his 
cause. ... In other respects Mr. Bryan was well enough ; 
let us say, a well-meaning man, and even one, who, in the 
main, felt he was acting the patriot: for this part, it is well 
known, is played in very different styles." All of which 
was very mild expression indeed compared with what was 
yet to come. 

Vice-President Bryan was now undoubtedly the most 
powerful force in the government of Pennsylvania, poten- 
tially. He now represented two elements : those who be- 
lieved in the old constitution of the province, now in the 
new form of the republic, and those, affected by French 
thought, as well as a large element of British thought, which 
believed in concentration of power in the one house. These 
two were, in substance, one ; for a single house that controls 
the purse and has the executive and judiciary dependent on 
it for salary, is essentially, though not technically, little 
different from the single chamber that has technical control 
of both executive and judiciary. It will thus be seen that 
they were really not far apart and that the new Vice-Presi- 
dent was their leader, organizer, legal counsel and voice, 
still in an unostentatious manner, even if, as now, the second 
official in the new state. It was this technical difference 
in favor of the old constitution on which the Bayard Mass- 
Meeting pitched as claiming departure from the old in the 
new form of 1776. They expected a separate executive, 
the Assembly to have no part in its choice, as an element of 
self-restraint ; and they also expected the Council to have 
legislative powers, as another element of self-restraint, as it 
did here in ante-1701 days and William Penn intended it to 
have after 1701, and as it actually did have whenever the 



138 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Council had influence enough over the Governor, or the As- 
sembly was weak enough or enough in sympathy to stand 
by and endure it, which was not so often. So they were 
able to cry "old constitution" at Vice-President Bryan and 
his party — or parties, with some show of technical accuracy ; 
but it did them no good, for the dominant element was that 
which had long secured essential concentration of power in 
the Assembly and they now had it technically, and, by means 
of the septennial Board of Censors, and test-oaths which 
would sift out opposition, intended to keep it so. In short 
the Bayard Mass-Meeting took the present British position, 
namely, to have executive and two houses, technically, but 
to have all power concentrated in one house, essentially ; 
"While Vice-President Bryan had passed from that position, 
which he had held for nearly a quarter of a century of 
citizenship, to technical, as well as essential, concentration 
of power in the Assembly, and this happened to be coinci- 
dent with the theories held by many in France and England 
then and ever since, until it has today many adherents in all 
lands and practically characterizes a most important school 
of political science. Vice-President Bryan and that power- 
ful young member of the Congressional Board of War, 
Lawyer James Wilson, and the Bayard Mass-Meeting at the 
State House represented permanent theories, and nowhere 
in history have the three theories fought a greater struggle 
than that now entered upon in Pennsylvania on the advent 
of Judge Bryan as Vice-President of its Supreme Executive 
Council. 

As if to symbolize this centralized system in the As- 
sembly, that body's Speaker, on March 4th, had adminis- 
tered the oath of office to President Wharton, and on the 
following day the latter did likewise to Vice-President 
Bryan, and he to the rest of the Executive Council. It be- 
came evident very soon that in this organization, there was 
one marked division of labor in that upper west room 
Council Chamber, which was a species of "Executive Man- 
sion ;" and that was that President Wharton, as he had been 
before, as head of the Council of Safety, was chiefly occu- 
pied with the military and naval sides of the state govern- 





The Supreme Executive Council Room 

where Vice-President Bryan served 

Independence Hall, Second Floor, S. W. Corner 



A PENNSYLVANIA VICE-PRESIDENT 139 

ment and Vice-President Bryan gave attention to the re- 
organization of the civil and poHtical sides of it.^ There is 
no evidence that President Wharton was concerned with the 
latter side at all ; so he aroused no enmities, while to his jurist 
colleague was ascribed all political and civil blame. And 
the Vice-President had his hands full, too ; so that it was 
not strange that he was absent on the 11th, 12th and 13th 
of March, especially when one knows that the Anti-Consti- 
tutionalists, under the leadership of Congressman James 
Wilson, on these very days, were taking vigorous measures 
to get a new convention before the new government got 
on its feet. On the 13th, Mr. Wilson wrote his friends 
Atlee and Yeates of Lancaster: "The Assembly taking ad- 
vantage of the weight and influence, which those in the 
opposition to this plan of government bestowed upon them 
for the purpose of defending the state, and repelling the 
common enemy, are now proceeding, in absence of that 
weight and influence, to establish their power under the con- 
stitution. It is therefore high time that those who think 
the constitution a bad one should rouse themselves. From 
many accounts I am led to believe that the dissatisfaction 
with the Assembly and their measures is very great and 
general ; and that a successful opposition wants only a be- 
ginning. The enclosed declaration will show you what steps 
we are taking here. It is already signed by the most re- 
spectable inhabitants of this place [Philadelphia]. I could 
wish that similar measures were adopted in other places."- 
The previous day's issue of the Pennsylvania Journal con- 
tained an article by "Phocion" who lifted the veil over the 
proceedings since the November election : He said that out 
of an electorate of 50,000 or 60,000 in the state not more 
than 2500 voted, so that only about half of the 72 members 
of Assembly were chosen, and only about half of them were 
able to take the oath ; that in January an act was passed 
without publication for public consideration beforehand, a 



^ It is interesting to note that two volumes, Bum's Justice and Black- 
stone's Commentaries were ordered, on March 10th for the use of the rouncil, 
and that would undoubtedly be done at Judge Bryan's suggestion, as he was 
the legal adviser of the Council. 

^Life and Writings of James Wilson, by Burton Alva Konkle, Vol. II. 



140 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

violation of this announced great organ of safety. He 
asserts that the February election in Philadelphia, when Mr. 
Wharton was chosen Councillor, only 29 votes were cast 
and at the later one when Judge Bryan was chosen Coun- 
cillor only 41 ! Therefore, he says, many withdrew from the 
Assembly. He does not say, however, how much this was 
due to absence on military duty. Vice-President Bryan 
therefore had his hands full, indeed, to pull successful re- 
organization out of these conditions. 

One of his friends, under the pen-name of "Demophi- 
lus," on March 19th, in the Gazette, paid his respects to 
"Phocion" in kind: "Whether you are that Proprietarian 
retainer — that compromising farmer [Dickinson] — that pro- 
crastinating delegates, whose chilling breath backened[?] 
all the measures of Congress [James Wilson], whether you 
are that piddling politician — that summer soldier that once 
looked over the Sound to Staten Island on purpose to re- 
gain your lost popularity, — and in time of danger, resigned 
all your public trusts, and fled to another state — or whether 
you are that detested Jackall, whose whole life has been 
spent in hunting prey for foreign and domestic lions, im- 
ports but little in the present question. One thing is clear 
as sunshine, that you are a pernicious, disappointed and 
disaffected incendiary, whose revenge for the neglect your 
own demerits have subjected you to, would rekindle a flame 
which a Mifilin only could have damped and prevented from 
overwhelming the state in ruin. Your infernal ambi- 
tion to be at the head of everything rendered you irreconcila- 
ble to a change of that rotten system which would admit of 
one man's bearing as many commissions as he could wag un- 
der — and your resentment, sharpened by the disappointment 
of not having the opportunity of framing the constitution 
of this country with the dregs of your old Proprietarian 
Assembly, put you upon the search of measures to over-set 
that bulwark, which your old opponent, in conjunction with 
many other wise and honest men, had raised against your 
aristocratical machinations." In fact "Demophilus" dares 
"Phocion" to put out a real pamphlet criticism of the con- 
stitution and he will put out one showing only the contents 



A PENNSYLVANIA VICE-PRESIDENT 141 

of that instrument; then if a majority vote for a new con- 
vention can be secured he will himself be convinced and 
converted to it for good. 

Another writer, "Philadelphia," says : "The wisdom of 
Pennsylvania collected in the late Convention concluded 
justly that the power of government really resided in the 
body of the people, and considering we have no hereditary 
King or Lords, whose prerogatives entitle them to negatives 
in their own right, a negative, or power of controlling the 
united zmll of the whole community, is not only absurd and 
ridiculous, but highly dangerous. Consistent with their 
trust, the Convention could not have established such a 
power, without special instructions for that purpose, neither 
had they a precedent for it in our former constitution." 
Pie suggests that Holland's example be followed, who has 
a great lawyer "Pensionary" who revises every law before 
it is passed, and suggests the new Chief Justice Thomas 
McKean as the man to be called by the Assembly for that 
purpose. 

The Whig Society, recently organized, with the artist, 
Charles Wilson Peale, as chairman, issued a plea also for 
moderation in opponents of the constitution during the pres- 
ent turbulent times. On May 6th over forty of James 
Wilson's followers — Dr. Rush, the Cadwaladers, Ross, the 
Clymers, the Bradfords, Nixon, Thomson, Morris and 
others appealed to President Wharton and the Board of 
War for a Convention, and the latter, headed by Richard 
Bache agreed to join them in appeal to the Assembly. To 
this a counter-appeal was made by the Whig Society, 
Charles Wilson Peale, chairman, to the general effect that 
it was now a period of invasion and it would weaken 
powers of resistance to turn from war to constitutions. 
Many others on both sides expressed themselves vigorously, 
until it was evident the movement for a new convention 
was gathering great momentum. 

On the 13th the Council had appointed a State Board 
of War, with Rittenhouse at the head, and a Navy Board ; 
but on the 14th, when Vice-President Bryan presided, in 
the President's absence, the latter Board declined to take 



142 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

the test oath. Judge Bryan presided on the 17th also, and 
on the 18th, when both were present, they asked the As- 
sembly to settle the compensation of members of the 
Supreme Court before appointments were made. This was 
in view of offering it to Col. Joseph Reed, then with the 
army. On the 21st and 22nd, when both were present, 
wholesale appointments over the state were made, after 
which Vice-President Bryan was absent five days. This 
absence may have been due in part to his duties as Naval 
officer of the port, for it was April 4th before his successor 
was appointed. On April 5th, while he was absent, the 
state Congressmen had a conference with the Council on the 
movements of General Howe, whose objective was un- 
doubtedly the capture of Philadelphia. They came again 
on the 10th to arrange for defense, when Vice-President 
Bryan was absent, doubtless because these were military 
sessions, in which President Wharton would be the au- 
thority. Indeed he was absent the rest of May and the first 
five days in June, and was no doubt engaged in the legal 
business side of the government ; indeed, on the 6th of June 
he was second in a list of about a dozen men who were 
given general Justice of the Peace powers. Thereafter he 
was almost invariably present. 

On the 11th of June, the Assembly, headed by Speaker 
John Bayard, sought a conference with the Supreme Ex- 
ecutive Council on the flood of petitions for a new Consti- 
tutional Convention precipitated by Congressman James 
Wilson's propaganda. The Council advised that if the 
Assembly thought it their duty to take measures to find the 
wishes of the people, it should be done in a conciliatory 
spirit. A week later, on June 17th, the Assembly issued a 
proclamation, amid all the excitement and noises of the 
wagons and drums of the militia getting ready to be called 
when General Howe's army got around Cape May and 
showed whether he was to enter the Chesapeake or the 
Delaware, — issued a proclamation that each election dis- 
trict, at the next election, was to choose a Commissioner, 
who should personally visit all voters in his district and 
take his sentiments for or against a call for a new conven- 



A PENNSYLVANIA VICE-PRESIDENT 143 

tion and the results were to be reported to the state govern- 
ment. On the same day the Assembly replied to the pro- 
posals of the Assembly of Virginia for measures to jointly 
settle the western boundary line of Pennsylvania westward 
of the Mason and Dixon line. In this they proposed a 
joint commission or a settlement of it through the channel 
of the Congress. As this concerns Vice-President Bryan 
intimately it may be further considered at the proper place. 
Two days later, on June 19th, the Assembly, in the room 
across the hall, adjourned to September 3rd. 

By the next day the concentration of militia activity in 
State House square was so great and accompanied by such 
confusion of noises, that the Council ordered a rendezvous 
elsewhere. These were days of tense emergency effort, 
but not so much but that the Council provided in advance 
for failure in elections on July 5th. All of July was spent 
largely in organizing for possible evacuation of the city, 
when the course of General Howe and the outcome of it 
could be determined. Wholesale appointment of officers to 
organize removal of live-stock to the country was ordered ; 
and when, on the 27th, the enemy fleet was reported ofif 
Egg Harbor, New Jersey, a new militia call was issued. 
Efforts to organize the Supreme Court had not succeeded 
heretofore, for Col. Joseph Reed felt compelled to decline 
the Chief Justiceship after much delay, and on July 28th 
Col. Thomas McKean was appointed, with Jonathan Dick- 
inson Sergeant, Attorney-General. By August 1st public 
papers were ordered removed to various places in the back 
country, and mention of express riders from south New 
Jersey, ]\Iaryland and Delaware are frequent. By the 12th 
ex-Governor John Penn and Chief Justice Benjamin Chew 
were ordered as prisoners to Virginia, at the request 
of Congress, but in a few days Dr. John Ewing told the 
Council that the Attorney-General was ready to sign a 
parole merely as an ex-officer of the old government, as 
that was his only "ofifense." Many others were on parole 
besides, ex-Governor James Hamilton being one of them. 
By the 16th of August the appointment of Judges Wm. 
Augustus Atlee and John Evans as "second and third 



144 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

judges" of the Supreme Court completed the organization 
of that body, and the oath was ordered administered on 
the 19th. The state organization began to take shape under 
Vice-President Bryan's skillful management, but the order 
on the 27th to take all the lead spouting of the city down, 
the disarming of all the disaffected, and on the 29th the 
actual movement of all cattle from southeastern Pennsyl- 
vania was the result of General Howe's fleet in the Chesa- 
peake. On the 31st of August Messrs. Rittenhouse, Brad- 
ford, Delaney and Capt. Peale were appointed to make out 
a list of dangerous persons to have at large and Vice-Presi- 
dent Bryan signed the order for their arrest, while late in 
the day news of Howe's army landing at the head of the 
Chesapeake in Maryland arrived. The imprisonments un- 
der the Vice-President's direction were numerous in early 
September, Provost Smith of the College of Philadelphia 
being one of them. As all of these were made on Con- 
gressional recommendation, on inquiry by Vice-President 
Bryan, it was stated that they might be released on swear- 
ing allegiance. These prisoners were placed in the Masonic 
Lodge and by September 9th were ordered taken to Staun- 
ton, Virginia. 

Vice-President Bryan was doing so increasing a share 
of the work that, although on September 5th, he was paid 
£250 for the six months' work, on October 12th his salary 
was made equal to that of President Wharton, £1000, to date 
from his election. On September 10th proclamation of the 
approach of the enemy was made and the next day all shops 
and stores were closed and every able-bodied man was 
ordered into militia duty. On the 14th all the bridges on 
the Schuylkill were ordered taken around into the Delaware 
and on the 23rd the Council held their last meeting in Phila- 
delphia, after which on the 26th, General Howe's entry 
took place and the old Council and Assembly rooms were 
in the hands of the enemy. 

ATeanwhile the Assembly had been trying to get a 
quorum ever since the 3rd instant and only succeeded on 
the 13th, whereupon, on the following day they vented 
their wrath on Congressmen Wilson and Clymer by an 



A PENNSYLVANIA VICE-PRESIDENT 145 

order for superseding them, and on the 16th voted to 
withdraw the plans for electing Convention Commissioners 
— or, as they put it, postponed further action on a new 
convention on account of the present emergency. On the 
18th, they adjourned to meet at Lancaster on the 25th, the 
enemy entering the next day. 

The last week in September, 1777, with the surrender 
of the American capital, Philadelphia, was a dark time to 
all, as well as to Vice-President Bryan of Pennsylvania. 
Both the state and Congressional governments must seek 
a new home, temporarily, and both made hasty choice of a 
small city in the back country, Lancaster. 

In all the gloom of this dark year of 1777, however, 
there was one bright ray and that was one furnished by 
Vice-President Bryan, himself. Slavery had always existed 
in Pennsylvania, as in other colonies, although there had 
always been movements against it, especially among the 
Quakers. But as the spirit of liberty began to flame higher 
after the Declaration of Independence, it began to appear 
to some high souls, and Vice-President Bryan among them, 
that slavery of a race was inconsistent with the terms of 
that declaration.^ Thereupon, some time during this year 
1777, the exact date of which is not known, Vice-President 

1 In her constitutional convention in 1776 Pennsylvania had said all men 
were "free and equal," and some wanted it to include negroes, by inference, but 
wanted in vain. Judge Bryan persisted, however, and in 1777 had recom- 
mended a definite law freeing slaves. The Assembly, sensitive about origi- 
nating law, ignored it This year, on June 4th, Vermont (as it came to 
be called) declared her independence of the states on either side of her, 
and by July 8th had formed a constitution, in which they expressed 
the inference, from the "free and equal" clause, that slaves "ought not" to be 
held, as the first article of the declaration of rights. This constitution was 
almost a copy of the Pennsylvania one, copied on the recommendation of 
Dr. Thomas Young of Philadelphia. Like that, it was not submitted to the 
people, and was not put into effect by election until March 12, 1778; nor was 
its independence recognized by the States of New York and New Hampshire. 
Furthermore the Assembly, itself, felt it necessary to "affirm" the constitution 
in 1779 and again in 1782, and a new constitution was made in 1786; and 
even then the status of the New York - New Hampshire contest was such 
that the state was not admitted by Congress untU 1791. Still further, a case 
was had in the Supreme Court of Vermont at the August term, 1802, in 
which one attorney said "That the position 'that slavery cannot exist in this 
state,' must be taken cum grano salis," and the case was to test the exist- 
ence of slavery in Vermont. It is true the decision held that, under the 
same article, in the then present Constitution of 1793 (those of 1786 and 
1777 being the same), it had no legal existence. This gave the phrase 
"ought not" the force of "shall not," of course. Vermont had so few slaves 
that it was no serious matter, and she avowedly followed Pennsylvania; 
consequently she followed Judge Bryan, anyhow, so that his position as leader 
in this great question of legal emancipation is unassailalile. The Vermont 
action is best treated in an address before the Vermont Bar Association in 
January, 1921, by Chief Justice John Henry Watson, to whose researches 
the present writer, who suggested them, is greatly indebted. 



146 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Bryan persuaded the Supreme Executive Council to pro- 
pose to the Assembly the desirability of a law for the 
gradual emancipation of slaves. The Assembly at that time 
did not see its way clear, however, to take the matter up, 
it being a very serious subject and the legislative body was 
very sensitive about originating all legislation. This was 
very much in the heart of Vice-President Bryan, however, 
and this was only, as it proved, the first step in providing 
the first unquestioned legal emancipation of the colored 
race on the American continent. 



CHAPTER XI 

Vice-President George Bryan of Pennsylvania 
Second Term. Lancaster 

1777 

While General Howe is establishing himself in the State 
House at Philadelphia, this last week of September, 1777, 
and the state and Congressional governments are in flight 
to the back country, Vice-President Bryan among them, 
some note may be taken of the latter's family, which it 
would now become necessary for him to remove, as well 
as aid in directing removal of the state government. As 
has been noted already, up to 1767, his family consisted of 
his wife and six children: Sarah, who was now a young 
lady of eighteen ; Samuel, a youth of seventeen and of con- 
siderable natural ability; Arthur, now a boy of fifteen; 
Francis, a twelve-year-old boy; Mary, a child of ten years^ 
and George, a year her junior. But since 1767, the records 
give the baptism of a daughter, Elizabeth, on June 21, 1769; 
a son, William, on August 25, 1771, born on July 12th; an- 
other son, Thomas, baptized on January 27, 1773, born on 
November 27, 1772; and Jonathan, born on October 16, 
1774. These would now be little children of seven, five, 
four and two respectively, although there is some ground 
for the impression that the first of these died in early 
childhood. The whole family would thus be a large one 
of nine children, at the time Judge Bryan applied for the 
post of Port or Naval Officer of Philadelphia, and the eldest 
only eighteen."^ It would not be strange therefore if Vice- 

1 The records of the birth and baptism of Elizabeth. William and Thomas 
are those of the Second Presbyterian Church 0(f Philadelphia, although that 
of the last child, Jonathan, is in those of the First Presbyterian Church. 
This would seeni to indicate that, since the records of the births of Mary in 
176S and George in 1767 are of the First Presbyterian Church, that the 
family were in the Second Church before about 1765; in the First for the next 
two or three years; back in the Second from about 1770' to 1772 or '3; then 
again in the First for a time; but later and finally in their "first love," the 

147 



148 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

President Bryan should not arrive until the second day's 
meeting of the Supreme Executive Council at the new state 
capital. 

It was no small jaunt, in a round-about course by way 
of Bethlehem, to take a state government out almost due 
westward for something over sixty miles to the village of 
Lancaster, lying in that rich Susquehanna valley that has 
long been synonymous with fat fields and prosperity/ 
And what is more the Congress of the union was on the 
way there, too, with its papers. There was great demand 
for the famous old Conestoga wagon, for which Lancaster 
is famous. The state and Congressional governments had 
been in the same building in Philadelphia and why should 
they not be in Lancaster? Both governments had voted to 
go there in emergency, the Congress on the 14th, leaving 
on the 18th and arriving, in force, first, so as to have a 
meeting on Saturday, the 27th. It was held in the Court 
House, in the center of the village public square. A two- 
story brick structure, surmounted by a belfry and steeple, 
with north and south clock-faces to tell the time to the 
courts below. The Congress gathered on the brick pave- 
ment of the first floor before the bench and bar used by the 
courts, and the great fire-place flanked by two pillars stand- 
ing on pedestals sunk in the pavement. This day's meeting, 
liowever, convinced them that this building was not large 
enough for the two governments, for the Pennsylvania 
'Supreme Executive Council would need the second floor 
rooms, and the Assembly the room the Congress were in ; 
besides it would be just as well to have the Congressional 
capital farther inland at the present juncture. The result 
was that they adjourned to meet at York some twenty miles 
farther westward across the Susquehanna on Tuesday, the 

Second Presbyterian Church. At least this is one way of accounting for the 
location of these records, which is rather unusual; although, as the present 
writer knows from personal experience, a baptism of a child may take place 
elsewhere than in the church of the parents for merely sentimental reasons; 
and Vice-President Bryan's personal regard for Rev. Dr. John Ewing, of 
the First, may have been the occasion of the last record, namely of Jonathan, 
in that church. 

^ The course up around Bethlehem was due to General Howe's army 
having control of the access to the old Lancaster road; and, indeed, it was 
thought possible that they might have to use Bethlehem instead of Lancaster. 
General Washington disposed his army where he could protect them, how- 
ever. 




g W c 3 



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VICE-PRESIDENCY CONTINUED 149 

30th of September, where they would again take into con- 
sideration the proposed articles of Confederation, which was 
to be an even more centralized government than that now 
objected to, but supreme, in this state. 

Wednesday, October 1st, President Wharton and the 
Supreme Executive Council, without the Vice-President, 
however, met in the upper rooms of the Lancaster Court 
House capital, and the Assembly, on the brick pavement 
in the room below, had been trying to get a quorum ever 
since Congress had given up the room to them, for they 
were due to meet even two days before Congress did. They 
were destined to wait over a week, while on Friday, the 
3rd of October, Vice-President Bryan having arrived, the 
Council was hard at work up stairs, providing a gun-factory 
near at hand, expresses to the army, conferences with the 
Assembly committee, one of whom was a vigorous young 
man from Cumberland county, Robert Whitehill, destined 
to become one of the Vice-President's most efficient right- 
hand men. 

On Monday, the 6th, the Assembly secured a quorum 
below stairs and, on Wednesday, because of the difficulty 
of keeping a quorum, decided to give the Supreme Execu- 
tive Council nearly full powers of government. On Thurs- 
day, however, they concluded to add a few persons to the 
Executive and make them a Council of Safety, one of these 
to be Representative Robert Whitehill. On Sunday, the 
1 2th, although the Council up stairs had adjourned without 
doing business, the Assembly, in consideration of the great 
activity of Vice-President Bryan, who was an adept at 
absorbing duties into his own person, voted to raise his 
salary to be equal to the President, £1000, to date from his 
first election. With the Council of Safety created, they 
adjourned on Monday. 

According to the proclamation of the creation of the 
Council of Safety, composed of the Supreme Executive 
Council, Speaker John Bayard and eight other Assembly- 
men, the President or Vice-President and any six of the 
rest to be a quorum, they were inaugurated in the Council 
rooms, above stairs, on Fridav, October 17th. One of 



150 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

their first acts was the appointment of commissoin to take 
over all Tory property — that is, property of those who went 
over to the British side. Financial affairs occupied them 
much, and Vice-President Bryan was present every day. 
Supplies occupied much of their attention also. One of the 
curious references of the Council in which the Vice-Presi- 
dent took part was the examination of a prisoner whom 
General Howe had sent to Mr. Thomas Willing, Robert 
Morris and Congressman Duer offering to the colonists all 
they had had in 1763, even yielding on paper currency, if 
they would give up independency, intimating that more 
troops were to arrive in the spring. This occurred on No- 
vember 21, 1777. Vice-President Bryan and Attorney- 
General Sergeant were appointed on the 24th to issue a 
public statement on the matter, as was done on the follow- 
ing day. In this, after citing several previous deceptions of 
the same kind, as that through General Sullivan and that 
through General Lee, they said : 

"Friends and Countrymen, be not deceived. If General 
Howe has anything to propose to Congress, the way is 
op[en]ed to him thro' the usual channels. He can send a 
flag of truce ; he can write ; he is under no necessity of 
sending out an obscure body like a thief or a spy, to steal 
through our camp, without passports, without license. He 
can send a flag of truce to desire General Washington to 
prevent the cutting of boulting cloths ; does the settling of 
a treaty of peace require less ceremony? No; but a mes- 
sage in writing, by a flag of truce, is not so easily evaded. 
General Howe might be loth to deny his hand-writing, 
tho', it seems, he has not hesitated to deny his word. France 
and Spain are likely now to take a decisive part in our 
quarrel ; a few months perseverance will establish our 
liberty and independence forever, if we are not false to 
ourselves ; if we are driven to and fro, and deceived by 
every idle artifice of our perfidious enemies ; trusting to 
Providence we may look forward with confidence to the 
hope of being speedily and forever delivered from the per- 
fidy and tyranny of Britain ; from the bloody and vindictive 
malice of our cruel enemies." 



VICE-PRESIDENCY CONTINUED 151 

Vice-President Bryan was not present on the 26th, or 
up to and including December 4th, when the Council of 
Safety agreed that the progress of the enemy had been so 
restrained that the Assembly election had been nearly all 
carried out, and that the Council of Safety was thereby 
extinguished. A proclamation to this effect was issued by 
President Wharton on the 6th. 

While the Council of Safety had emergency war powers, 
while it was inconvenient to have Assembly meetings, this 
did not affect the regular meetings of the Supreme Execu- 
tive Council, in which Vice-President Bryan was a most 
active leader, although he missed the meetings of early 
December as he did those of the Council of Safety. These 
were the dark days of Valley Forge and finances occupied 
the chief attention of the Supreme Executive Council in that 
upper room of the Lancaster Court House capital, as well 
as superintendence of Assembly elections as fast as the 
counties were able to carry them out. On the recommenda- 
tion of Congress, they issued a proclamation on November 
12th, ordered that the 18th of December be set apart as a 
day of prayer and thanksgiving. 

From October 27th, newly elected members of the As- 
sembly had been trying to get a quorum in the room below 
stairs and only succeeded on November 20th, when pro- 
vision was made for the second election of President and 
Vice-President of the Supreme Executive Council on the 
following day. Mr. Wharton and Judge Bryan were re- 
elected and proclaimed on the same day. Four days later, 
they received word from Congress that the new Articles 
of Confederation were now submitted to the states and 
recommended for immediate consideration, as a "compact" 
between them ; and urging the necessity for raising $5,000,- 
000 for expenses in 1778, to do this in part by confiscation 
and sale of estates of persons who had forfeited right of 
protection. Pennsylvania was asked to raise as her quota 
$620,000, the only states assigned a greater amount being 
Massachusetts with $820,000 and Virginia with $800,000. 

The next incident of especial interest, in the busy pro- 
ceedings of both departments of government, was the ap- 



152 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

pointment of December 15th by each, Vice-President Bryan 
and Mr. Thomas Scott representing the Council, of a com- 
mittee to formulate and present a protest to Congress 
against General Washington's army going into winter 
quarters. There is no record of its further progress, how- 
ever, unless the action of January 1, 1778, relating to peti- 
tions received urging a combined attack by Pennsylvania 
troops upon the enemy, in sending it to Congress, was a 
result of it. On the 16th, the Congress expressed its appre- 
ciation of the anxiety of the Supreme Executive Council to 
make an effort to regain their capital, and sent a committee 
to join the Council in conferring with General Washington 
and if plans were arranged the Congress would order neigh- 
boring state troops to aid. As Vice-President Bryan was 
not present until the 26th after this it is probable he was 
assigned to go to Valley Forge for the interview. 

For the first two weeks of February President Wharton 
was absent, Vice-President Bryan presiding during that 
time, and for a time in March the Vice-President was 
absent. On the 18th of the latter month they followed the 
suggestion of Congress that the 22nd of April be a day of 
"fasting, humiliation and prayer," as an expression of the 
serious days of Valley Forge. Vice-Presi ^ent Bryan was 
absent much of ]\Iarch and to the 10th of April. This was 
a period of great activity in both Council and Assembly, 
the latter ordering the State's Congressmen to ratify the 
Articles of Conederation for the state, the members then 
being Dr. Franklin, Robert Morris, Daniel Roberdeau, 
Jonathan B. Smith, James Smith, William Clingan and 
Joseph Reed, James Wilson having been displaced soon 
after the fall of Philadelphia, so that he did not have occa- 
sion to take part in ratification, which would have been 
against his every conviction. 

Early in May, 1778, the Act of Attainder, passed by the 
Assembly at the suggestion of the Congress, caused a great 
deal of work for the Supreme Executive Council in pro- 
viding commissioners to handle forfeited estates, and natur- 
ally much of this fell to Vice-President Bryan as the lawyer 
of that body, and on May 8th, a proclamation ordering a con- 



VICE-PRESIDENCY CONTINUED 153 

siderable number of persons to surrender themselves to 
legal authority of the state. During most of the latter half 
of May, Vice-President Bryan presided in Council and on 
May 21st another large list of suspected persons was pub- 
lished. Great activity characterizes this period in finance 
and supplies, which indicated that the spring military cam- 
paign of General Washington was decidedly vigorous and 
bode ill for the hold of General Howe on the capital of the 
state and the union. 

On Saturday, the 23rd of May, 1778, while Vice-Presi- 
dent Bryan was presiding in the Council room above stairs, 
news came, that President Wharton had died early that 
morning. The funeral was held on Sunday and at request 
of the Evangelical Trinity Church funeral arrangements 
for his interment there were made. The procession was in 
the following order. 1. The Military under Col. Gibson ; 
2. Physicians ; 3. The casket covered with a pall, the pall 
supported by six Councillors ; 4. The three sons of Presi- 
dent Wharton ; 5. Vice-President Bryan attended by the 
Secretary of the Council ; 6. The rest of the Council ; 7. 
The State Treasurer, Mr. Rittenhouse, and the Judges of 
the Supreme Court ; 8. Delegates in Congress ; 9. Speaker 
of the Assembly, attended by the Assembly Clerk; Mem- 
bers of Assembly; 10. Door-keepers of Council and As- 
sembly; 11. Lancaster borough and county officials; 12. 
Coroner and Prothonotary ; 13. Lawyers; 14. Officers of 
Army and Navy; and 15. Citizens. When the interment 
was taking place minute guns were fired on the Lancaster 
Commons to the number of forty-four. With the passing 
of President Wharton, Vice-President Bryan became chief 
executive of Pennsylvania on May 23, 1778, at the Lan- 
caster capital. 



CHAPTER XII 

President George Bryan of Pennsylvania, at Lancas- 
ter AND Philadelphia 

1778 

The new chief executive of the commonwealth was 
probably but little more heavily burdened than he had been 
before ; as, from the civil side, he had been practically chief 
executive almost ever since he held the office of Vice-Presi- 
dent. Indeed the title seemed to have meant an alternate 
or co-operator, since there were no other duties attached to 
the office specifically. So that he had been actual chief 
executive in Council whenever the President was absent. 
He construed his office, however, as Vice-President acting 
as President, while a vacancy existed in the office, and so 
did not change his title during his whole period as chief 
executive. He was, however, President of the Supreme 
Executive Council in fact, on any ordinary construction of 
the term \^ice-President, namely, one designed to replace the 
President in emergency; and his succession in case of death 
was automatic and did not require any further official action, 
although in a man who had not been so active a leader and 
absorbed so many duties to himself as Vice-President Bryan 
had, a precedent of another kind might have been inaugu- 
rated. Because it was an actuality — and in order to dis- 
tinguish his service in this particular period from that which 
followed it as well as that which preceded it, the designation 
President Bryan will be used in this chapter. 

And the first thing the Lancaster government did under 
the new chief executive on ^Monday, the 25th [1778], the 
next day after the funeral, was for the Assembly to resolve 
unanimously that independence had come to stay; and, in 
view of the Lord North proposals of the preceeding 19th 
of February, designed to secure peace by an arrangement 

154 




President George Bryan, 1777-1778 

From a portrait by Rosenthal, in Independence Hall, after the 

original in possession of George B. Logan, Pittsburgh 



PENNSYLVANIA'S PRESIDENT 155 

to restore the status quo of 1763, on consideration of 
abandoning purposes of independence ; and also the Con- 
gress' note of it on the 2nd of April, they resolved that 
Congress only could treat with Great Britain ; they praise 
the Congress for refusal to treat except on the basis of 
independence ; that Pennsylvania's consent is an absolute 
necessity to any other course; that "this house will main- 
tain, support and defend the sovereignty and independence 
of this state with their lives and fortunes ;" and that the 
Council hold their forces ready to act on that basis. 

These were very busy days in the up-stairs rooms at the 
Lancaster Court House capital as it began to be evident 
that the British could not hold Philadelphia much longer. 
And the lists of suspects grew until on June 15th, President 
Bryan issued, for the Council, the largest list yet announced. 
Then, at 11 o'clock, Friday morning, June 19, 1778, General 
Washington's messenger arrived with news that the British 
had left Philadelphia. The following day the Pennsylvania 
Evening Post, which had been appearing in Philadelphia 
during the occupation, said : "The British army, early last 
Thursday [18th] morning, completed their evacuation of 
this city, having before transported their stores and most 
of their artillery into the Jerseys, where they had thrown 
up some works, and several of their regiments were en- 
camped. They manned the lines the preceding night, and 
retreating over the commons, crossed at Gloucester point. It 
is supposed they will endeavor to go to New York : a 
party of the American light horse pursued them very close, 
and took a great many prisoners, some of whom were 
refugees. Yesterday morning [Friday] the Hon. Maj. Gen. 
Arnold took possession of this city, with Col. Jackson's 
Massachusetts regiment." 

President Bryan and the Council's first act on hearing 
the news from Philadelphia was to issue a writ of election 
for Council in that city to fill the vacancy caused by the 
death of President Wharton, and by Friday, a week later, 
June 26th, they were in Philadelphia. One of the first 
subjects acted upon was to arrange for a celebration, on 
Saturday, July 4th, of the first anniversary of the Declara- 



156 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

tion of Independence. They, however, joined the Con- 
gress, which had also returned, on that date in "a grand 
festival" at the City Tavern on the southwest corner of 
Second Street, and what is now Moravian Street, just 
above Walnut. The toasts offered by the President of 
Congress are significant : 1. The United States of America ; 
2. The Protector of the Rights of Mankind ; 3. The 
Friendly European Powers; 4. The Happy Era of the 
Independence of America ; 5. The Commander-in-Chief of 
the American Forces ; 6. The American Arms by Land 
and Sea ; 7. The Glorious 19th of April, 1775 ; 8. The 
Glorious 26th of December, 1776; 9. The Glorious 16th 
of October, 1777; 10. The 28th of June, Twice Glorious, 
1776-1777; 11. May the Arts and Sciences Flourish in 
America ; 12. May the People Continue Free Forever ; 
and 13. May the Union of the American States be Per- 
petual. Then followed, on the 12th, the arrival of M. 
Gerard, the first Minister from a great power, and, al- 
though it was Sunday, the rejoicing over the new ^Minister 
and the fleet of Count d'Estaing which brought him over, 
was almost equal to that of the first Fourth of July anni- 
versary.^ 

The Philadelphia election that had been ordered re- 
sulted in the choice of Congressman Joseph Reed, who was 
a great favorite with the Bryan party and who had declined 
the Qiief Justiceship the preceding year. He appeared 
before them on the 21st of July [1778] and showed he was 
deeply engaged in a Congressional Army committee of such 
importance that it would be impossible for him to attend 
soon, although he would do so as soon as possible. The 
same day there was published in the Evening Post a letter 
of 11th April, to "General Joseph Reed," in connection with 
which it was made public that an effort had been made to 
bribe him by offer of money and honors if he would try to 
bring about such a settlement as the British wanted ; and 



^ The day following this — the 13th — there appeared the first, even though 
insignificant, irritation hetween Congressional and State officers, which got 
only part of a sentence on the pages of the Colonial records. Secretary 
Charles Thomson made "an indecent and affronting applicaton" to President 
Bryan complaining of a Col. Proctor unjustly holding a house from him. 



PENNSYLVANIA'S PRESIDENT 157 

that Congressman Reed had said that he was not worth 
purchasing, but even if he were, the King was too poor to 
buy him — all of which greatly contributed to Congressman 
Reed's popularity in the state. Also he headed a paper then 
circulating for signatures and published on the 25th, in 
which the subscribers agreed to bring late traitors and sus- 
pects of the recently occupied territory to justice and punish- 
ment.^ In fact, this lawyer, who, with James Wilson, had 
received the degree of Master of Arts on the same day from 
the College of Philadelphia, had practically been given the 
latter's place in Congress by the Bryan party, and they 
wanted to use him as a foil to that vigorous and able oppo- 
nent of the present constitution. 

A few days later, on August 6th, President Bryan took 
part in the official reception to the first foreign minister 
accredited to the new government of the United States. 
The proceedings are interesting: Congressmen Lee and 
Samuel Adams, in a "coach and six" brought Alinister 
Gerard from his residence to the State House, Mr. Lee 
sitting with the Minister, at his left, and Mr. Adams on the 
front seat, the Minister's own "chariot" following with his 
secretary. When they arrived at the east room, they saw 
President Laurens sitting at his table on his elevated plat- 
form, and the Congressmen arranged in a semi-circle on 
either side of him, having at the nearest point of the circle, 
chairs for the Minister, and his two escorts, facing the 
President. It was one o'clock, when the Congress being 
seated, he took his seat. Thereupon, in the space behind the 
bar. President Bryan entered at the head of about two 
hundred representatives of the state and city government 
and leading citizens. Minister Gerard's credentials w'ere 
then handed to President Laurens, and Secretary Thomson 
then read and translated them, whereupon Congressman 
Lee introduced him and the entire assemblage rose together, 
bowed and were again seated. Minister Gerard then rose 
and addressed the Congress, "Gentlemen," he began, "the 

^ This was the organization which one writer nicknamed "The Furious 
Whigs," claiming that they wanted punishment more than independence. 
It was these prosecutions that caused so much increase in bitterness of 
feeling, naturally. 



158 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

connection formed by the King, my master, with the United 
States of America, is so agreeable to him that he could no 
longer delay sending me to reside among you for the pur- 
pose of cementing it." Among other things he said this 
alHance was to secure the peace which was its object. Presi- 
dent Laurens responded, lamenting "that lust of domination 
which gave birth to the present war" and giving the usual 
assurances to the new minister — this latter being done while 
Congressmen all stood. The two addresses, on paper, were 
exchanged, and all were again seated. Then all rose, the 
Minister and Congress bowed, whereupon Minister Gerard 
bowed to President Laurens and retired as he had entered ; 
and later a banquet was held, with the Congress as hosts, 
presumably at the City Tavern, as was usual. The news 
states that at this time all the bells of the city, that had been 
removed, were now restored. 

All of the disaffected looked upon President Bryan as 
their nemesis, for his name was signed to all the proclama- 
tions and legal papers concerning them. The profiteers and 
forestallers held him in like awe and fear, and the public 
looked to him for aid in regulating exportation of supplies, 
which was done on August 1st, by an embargo on all food 
supplies from the port of Philadelphia for a period of thirty 
days, a mode also of meeting the needs of keeping supplies 
from the enemy, as Congress had enacted on the 8th of 
June, but against which President Bryan and the Council 
had protested as beyond the powers of Congress. It was 
a matter of no easy regulation, and on August 18th the 
Council had to apply to the Assembly for aid. The latter 
body had on the previous January 2nd, passed an act to 
control profiteering or "forestalling and regrating," as they 
called it them, but it was proving a matter of great difficulty 
in administration, even though the act appointed a great 
number of Commissioners to handle it. 

This situation was intensified by the determination of 
Mr. Wilson, who had now settled his home in Philadel- 
phia at the southwest corner of Third and Walnut Streets, 
and others who more seriously opposed the Bryan consti- 
tution, to enter upon a vigorous campaign to control the 



PENNSYLVANIA'S PRESIDENT 159 

next Assembly as a first step to securing a new constitu- 
tional convention. This was accompanied, on August 17th, 
by the Assembly authorizing the Council to employ addi- 
tional legal aid in the various prosecutions which had be- 
come so numerous, and on the 21st, they employed Mr. 
Wilson's supposed rival and the favorite of the Bryan 
party, General Joseph Reed, as chief counsel for the current 
year. President Bryan and the Council had occasion to 
listen to pleas for clemency in some capital cases. On one 
occasion, August 31st, when several citizens made a plea 
for mercy for four condemned men. President Bryan told 
them of "the impossibility of supporting an army, without 
making examples of offenders in this way, and that what- 
ever the feelings of the members of Council may have as 
men, it must be remembered that the Council are to consider 
themselves as being bound by their station to perform some 
of the arduous duties of magistrates," suggesting, however, 
that it would be wholly proper for them to submit a written 
record of their plea for future reference. It can readily be 
seen, therefore, that Pennsylvania was brewing a consider- 
able confusion and materials for very bitter feeling. 

During the next month, the month of September, 1778, 
a case of capital importance arose in President Bryan's 
administration, that was to be one of the most notable 
cases in the history of state and national rights; and it was 
destined to last for thirty years and make Pennsylvania 
the first state to be in actual rebellion against the union. 
On September 8th the state of Pennsylvania's armed brig. 
Convention, aided by an American privateer, Le Gerard, 
brought into Philadelphia the British sloop Active and de- 
livered it to the state government, of which President Bryan 
was chief executive and Commander-in-Chief. It was 
found that it was a vessel in which some American prison- 
ers, led by Gideon Olmsted of Connecticut, had overpowered 
the British crew and taken possession and were about taking 
it to port as a prize. The captain of the Convention, 
however, denied that the four prisoners had full control of 
the vessel and her crew of fourteen, and laid claim to it 
as a prize for Pennsylvania and the crews of the Conven- 



160 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

tion and Le Gerard. As it happened, an act for establish- 
ing a State Court of Admiralty, already published, was 
ordered engrossed in the Assembly the day before, and on 
the following day, the 9th, was immediately passed, for it 
was at once evident that Mr. Olmsted proposed to contest 
the prize. This act said that the "finding of the facts by 
the jury shall be without re-examination or appeal." Judge 
George Ross, of Lancaster, was judge of this Admiralty 
Court, when, on the 14th, Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, 
the Attorney-General, presented the claim of the Conven- 
tions captain and the hearing was set for October 6th. 
Lawyer William Lewis, thereupon, presented the claim of 
Mr. Olmsted and his companions. The case was tried on 
November 4, 1778, and Judge Ross' decree provided, 
under jury determination of facts, that one-fourth go to 
Olmsted and his friends, and the three-fourths to the crews 
of the Convention and Le Gerard. Olmsted at once ap- 
pealed to Congress claiming in full, and, in the same court 
room, in the State House, on December 12th, after Presi- 
dent Bryan had ceased to be President, but was elected for 
his third term as Vice-President — so much of which may be 
anticipated. The Congressional Commissioners of Appeal, 
the predecessor of our national Supreme Court, the Hons. 
William Henry Drayton, William Ellery, John Henry and 
Oliver Ellsworth, decreed a reversal of the state court in 
favor of Olmsted and his friends, on December 15th. On 
the 28th of the month Judge Ross, while acknowledging the 
right of the Congressional "Court of Appeals," as he named 
it, to set aside a decree of the Admiralty Court, yet because 
it was on the facts as found by jury, he was unable to change 
his own court's decree and so ordered sale. This sale was 
laid before Judge Ross' court on the following January 
4 [1779], showing that it brought £47,981, and something 
over, Pennsylvania currency, so far as the cargo alone was 
concerned, the sloop still unsold. It will thus be seen that 
it was a very attractive prize, and that the issue lay in a 
disagreement as to the facts, the Congress considering that 
the Admiralty jury at Philadelphia were not right on the 
facts. General r>enedict Arnold, having a financial interest 



PENNSYLVANIA'S PRESIDENT 161 

in the matter, had urged the Commissioners to act quickly 
and they commanded the Marshall, too late, to hold posses- 
sion, but he showed them Judge Ross' receipt! The Penn- 
sylvania court had the money and held it against a decree 
of the highest court of the union on the basis of a clear 
statement of a Pennsylvania statute. The Congress, on 
March 6 [1779], on a vote of 21 to 6 — Pennsylvania being 
among the 6 — affirmed that such cases were matters of in- 
ternational law and that it could not be an ultimate state 
jurisdiction in either law or fact, or the United States did 
not have the power of war and peace. From January to 
June, 1779, correspondence passed between Congress and 
the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania ; but the 
Assembly had authorized Judge Ross to pay the money for 
sale of both cargo and sloop over to State Treasurer Rit- 
tenhouse. So far as Pennsylvania was concerned, now in 
control of the Bryan party, the case was considered closed ; 
altho" it was to remain to Judge Bryan, himself, the follow- 
ing year, to lead in writing and securing the passage of an 
act (8th March, 1780) abolishing jury trial in Admiralty 
cases and so making the United States supreme in inter- 
national matters ; and, it may be added, but one other state 
followed him in it, namely, South Carolina.^ This event, 
so far as Judge Bryan's relation to the law and right is 
concerned, is typical of his character. He was firm for this 
settlement of this case under the then existing state law 
and the uncertainty of the law of the Congressional union ; 
but, when he came to see the bearing of it upon future 
national action, restored the Admiralty Court to its proper 
civil law basis and consequent harmony with the develop- 
ing law of the young nation. He was firm to rigidity, but 
open-minded and fearless to new truth, and so inspired a 
profound confidence in his followers and the respect of all. 
On October 12, 1778 — to return to the date when this 



'This case had other features of state rebellion, of a most serious 
and unique sort, at times during the next thirty years before it was finally 
settled under Chief Justice John Marshall, and Judge Bryan had other rela- 
tions to it in years to come, which will receive attention later. One of the 
best accounts of this case is The Case of the Sloop "Active" by Hampton L. 
Carson, in The Pennsylvania Magazine, January, 1893. 



162 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

case began — General Reed resigned from Congress as a 
preliminary to the election, for he was put up as a candi- 
date for both Council and Assembly, and, as it turned out^ 
was elected to both. The Assembly election had been so 
close in many cases that there were several contests, so 
that from October 26th, there was no quorum until No- 
vember 6th. There were so many, however, on October 
30th that it became evident there was not going to be 
enough room, unless some changes were made in the As- 
sembly room at the State House, so it was decided to meet 
in the College building at Fourth and Arch Streets until 
the alterations were made. On the 6th of November, how- 
ever, an uncontested quorum was present, with a serious 
case of contest from Chester county. Then also it appeared 
how successful the campaign waged by Mr. Wilson proved 
to be ; for of the 59 uncontested members returned there 
were 19 who were so determined not to take the oath that 
would prevent them taking action to change the constitu- 
tion, that a form of reservation was passed and the 19 that 
added that reservation, were headed by Robert Morris. 
Indeed there were but 22 who took the oath without reser- 
vation that day. It will be seen, however, that the Bryan 
party were able to organize the Assembly, by election of 
John Bayard as Speaker. Of those who took the oath 
without reservation, but one was in the city, although four 
were in the county of Philadelphia. All but one did in 
Bucks ; one in Chester ; three in Lancaster ; one in Cumber- 
land ; two in Berks ; four in Northampton ; and one in 
Northumberland. The 19, with the reservation, were four 
in this city and two in the county of Philadelphia; three 
in Cumberland ; three in Berks ; one in Northampton ; and 
the whole six in Bedford. These were changed later, and 
the Wilsonites had great hopes of securing a majority yet. 
Indeed before the end of the mouth they gained four more 
making 23, which was still a minority, however. Mr. Wil- 
son enlisted General Wayne to help in the Chester county 
case, in hopes a new election would be ordered. "Matters 
are now approaching a crisis," he wrote; "and, in a few 
weeks, it will be determined, whether the state of Pennsyl- 



PENNSYLVANIA'S PRESIDENT 163 

vania shall be happy under a good constitution ; or oppressed 
by one, the most detestable that ever was formed." 

The Chester county election case came up on Tuesday, 
November 17, 1778, Mr. Wilson appearing as legal counsel 
for his party candidates, and it continued until the 23rd, 
one of the most notable cases in the state's history. The 
Bryan party, however, were able to win by 27 to 31 as 
against 17 to 21, the vote varying that much on its differ- 
ent forms, 27 to 31, however, representing the real stand- 
ing of the two parties in the Assembly, which was close 
enough to make it a very tense contest and practically to 
insure that a new popular expression on calling a constitu- 
tional convention should be provided for. And it was voted 
on the 28th, by the Assembly, unanimously. It provided 
that on March 25, 1779, an election should be arranged for 
to take place on the first Tuesday in April, at which time a 
vote as such for Assemblymen, shall be taken, in two ballot 
boxes, in one of which were to be put the votes for and 
against a convention and in the other the names of mem- 
bers of the convention in case it should be decided upon, 
and that they should meet on June 1, 1779. The conven- 
tion was to decide nine features: 1. A single or double 
chamber legislature; 2. If double, how the second branch 
and executive shall be constructed ; 3. If a single house, 
then shall any revision of any other kind be provided? 4. 
Shall justice and field officers of militia be appointed by the 
executive? 5. Shall the Council of Censors be abolished? 
6. Shall the President and Vice-President, after three years, 
if capable and worthy, be eligible for re-election? 7. Shall 
judges' salaries be fixed and certain, so as to make them 
more independent? 8. Shall Congressional delegates not be 
eligible for three successive years, to agree with the Articles 
of Confederation? 9. If these changes are made, how shall 
the oaths be modified? These results were to be published 
and a vote taken on the new features, they were to become 
a part of the constitution. The Council were asked to 
publicly state their approval of these resolutions, and 5000 
copies in English and 5000 in German were to be published. 
In this connection it may be noted that three days before 



164 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

this General Joseph Reed notified the Assembly that he had 
been elected to both Council and Assembly, and that as he 
had promised, if elected, to serve in the Council he resigned 
his seat in the Assembly. 

Aleanvvhile this month of November, 1778, had again 
brought President Bryan's keen desire to see the new free- 
dom consistently extended to all inhabitants of Pennsyl- 
vania now held in slavery. It will be recalled that he had 
persuaded the Council to urge it upon the Assembly the 
previous year ; and indeed all religious denominations 
nearly, led by the Quakers, who had for years agitated for 
its removal in their own body so successfully that by 1776, 
to own a slave was a disownable offense in a Quaker Meet- 
ing.^ Other bodies had joined in petitions and much manu- 
mission by individuals was effected, so that Vice-President 
Bryan had represented a very insistent voice when, in 1777, 
he had secured the Councils' action in urging an abolition 
law upon the Assembly. The Assembly were diplomatically 
inclined to resent such action by Vice-President Bryan and 
the Council, but merely ignored or postponed it indefinitely, 
because they held that all legislation should originate in 
the Assembly — the real reason, however, being that many 
slave-holders of Pennsylvania did not want to give up their 
property any more than many slave-holders of the South 
did in far later times. When he became President, however, 
he determined to press the matter again and did so during 
this month of November, on the 9th instant, about three 
weeks before General Reed's acceptance of election to the 
Council and his declination of election to the Assembly. The 
Assembly again diplomatically ignored or postponed it, for 
pressure of the slave-holding element was still strong. So 
that they had done nothing about the heads for a law that 
President Bryan had suggested, when on the 24th of this 
month. General Reed had qualified as a Councillor and re- 
signed his seat in Assembly. 

Before passing this subject let us see what President 
Bryan wrote to the Assembly on November 9th, concerning 
freedom of the slaves : "The late Assembly," he writes, 

* The Negro in Pennsylvania, 1639-1861, by Edward Raymond Turner, p. 75. 



PENNSYLVANIA'S PRESIDENT 165 

"was furnished with heads of a bill for manumitting infant 
negroes born of slaves, by which the gradual abolition of 
servitude for life would be obtained in an easy mode. It 
is not proposed that the present slaves, most of whom are 
scarcely competent for freedom, should be meddled with, 
but all importations must be forbidden, if the idea be 
adopted. This, or some better scheme, would tend to abro- 
gate slavery, the approbrium of America, from among us ; 
and no period seems more happy for the attempt than the 
present, as the number of such unhappy characters, ever 
few in Pennsylvania, has been much reduced by the prac- 
tices and plunder of our late invaders. In divesting the 
state of slaves, you will equally serve the cause of humanity 
and policy, and offer to God one of the most proper and 
best returns of gratitude for his great deliverance of us and 
our posterity from thraldom. You will also set your char- 
acter for justice and benevolence in a true point of view 
to all Europe, who are astonished to see a people, eager for 
liberty holding Negroes in bondage." This was signed by 
jMr. Bryan as chief-executive.^ 

Returning now to President Reed, on the 25th of No- 
vember, he not being present yet, President Bryan, or as 
he technically signed himself, "Vice-President," secured 
action by the Council asking the Assembly to join them in 
appointing a committee to arrange for choice of a Presi- 
dent and General Reed and Messrs. Hart and Smith were 
named as committee of the Supreme Executive Council. 
On the following day President Bryan issued a Proclama- 
tion of Thanksgiving, as suggested by the Congress, and 
on the 30th the Reed committee reported that on the fol- 
lowing day, December 1, 1778, the Assembly would come 
to the Council room and move to elect both a President and 
Vice-President, after which they should all adjourn to the 
Court House balcony at Second and Market Streets, and 
make public proclamation of the election of both, and then 
the two bodies should dine together at the City Tavern on 
Second Street, near Walnut, at the southwest corner of 
Moravian Street, opposite the old "Slate-Roofed House," 

1 The Pennsylvania Packet, Nov. 28, 1778. 



166 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

once the executive mansion of William Penn, the first ex- 
ecutive. 

The election occurred as arranged on Tuesday, Decem- 
ber 1, 1778, in the Council's upper west room at the State 
House ; and when the vote was taken by the Council's 
Secretary and the Clerk of the Assembly, it was found that, 
for President, there were 61 votes for General Reed, and 
one for President Bryan, no doubt General Reed's own vote, 
and one for James Read, whereupon General Reed was 
declared elected. The vote for Vice-President gave 62 for 
President Bryan and 1 for Mr. Hart, so that Judge Bryan 
was again elected Vice-President, with even more power 
than he had before, and with Lawyer James Wilson's chief 
rival as President, one of those, too, who had been con- 
verted to the single chamber legislature of the constitu- 
tion, which he had opposed in 1776. With the public 
proclamation President Bryan's service as chief executive of 
Pennsylvania came to a close, this first day of December, 
1778. 



CHAPTER XIII 

\'ice-President George Bryan of Pennsylvania at 
Philadelphia. Third Term 

1778 

On this first day of December, 1778, Vice-President 
Bryan was entering on his third term in that office. This 
does not signify anything but that he was desired as alter- 
nate to the executive office during his full three years' term 
as Councillor — the extreme limit to which anyone could 
serve as a Councillor, until an interval of four years there- 
after had elapsed. It also meant that while, in that three 
years, so far, there had been three chief executives, there 
had been only one Vice-President, Judge Bryan, who, in 
activity and absorption of the work of the Council, had been 
very nearly chief executive ever since his election as Vice- 
President on May 4th. Had he been elected to Council on 
the regular day of election, November 5, 1776, his term of 
office as Councillor, and, hence, Vice-President, would have 
expired on November 5th, 1779; but, as has been seen, his 
actual term, as Councillor, began with his election and quali- 
fication on February 21, 1777, while his election as Vice- 
President of the Council did not occur until March 4th, 
and his inauguration Xm March 5th. The election of Presi- 
dent and Vice-President of the Supreme Executive Council 
was, like that of the Assembly, an annual affair, while elec- 
tion of the Council was in classes and for three years, in 
order that men of experience would always form a majority 
of that body. It was expected that the annual election of 
both :\ssembly and President and Vice-President of the 
Council should occur on November 5, 1776; but as it re- 
fused to function properly, they made the annual election 
in November, 1777, just as if it had; and so caused 
A'ice-President Bryan's first term to be only eight months 

167 



168 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

and sixteen days, and his second one to be one year and 
ten days, a total of one year, eight months and twenty- 
six days, up to the date of his election to his third term 
as Vice-President. If to this is added twelve days as 
Councillor, before his first election as Vice-President, 
a total of one year, nine months and eight days is the 
length of his service as Councillor up to this election as 
Vice-President for the third term. His third term would, 
therefore, close officially with the completion of three years, 
or one year, two months and twenty-two days more, which 
would carry to November 5, 1779. 

The Vice-President had the reins of government of the 
state in his hands, it need hardly be said, more fully than 
any other man, even the able lawyer. General Joseph Reed, 
now the President, and for a few days President Reed was 
not even present. The proceedings of Council were com- 
posed of the details of government for from December 5 
to February 1, 1779, as the Assembly had a recess during 
that period. This new Assembly was a serious concern of 
the Council, of which Vice-President Bryan was the con- 
trolling power, for a party vote on December 4, 1778, the 
day before adjournment showed a line-up of only 28 to 23, 
a margin of 5 only for the Bryanites over the Wilsonites, 
led by Robert Morris — or, as they were then often denomi- 
nated, the "Constitutionalists" over the "Anti-Constitution- 
alists ;" for the whole bone of contention in state politics 
had now become one of favor or enmity to the new form 
of the old constitution. 

Therefore, on February 5, 1779, the Council adopted a 
formal message to the Assembly, as the constitution really 
provided for the executive, but which, as has been said, the 
Assembly was inclined to resent, especially if it took the 
form of an actual draft of a proposed law. This drew at- 
tention of the Congressional call for $15,000,000; state 
military administration; profiteering; abolition of slavery; 
Virginia and Connecticut claims ; creation of a Court of 
Errors ; and the disposal of the proprietary estates. The 
part of this message that made it notable, was the renewed 
incorporation of Vice-President Bryan's appeal for an act 



AN EXECUTIVE ORGANIZER 169 

of abolition of negro slavery. "We would also again bring 
into your view," it read, "a plan for the gradual abolition 
of slavery, so disgraceful to any people, and more especially 
to those idio have been contending in the great cause of 
liberty themselves, and upon whom Providence has be- 
stowed such eminent marks of its favor and protection. 
We think we are loudly called on to evince our gratitude, 
in making our feUozv-men joint-heirs zmth us of the same 
inestimable blessings, under such restrictions and regula- 
tions as will not injure the community, and will impercepti- 
bly enable them to relish and improve the station to which 
they will be advanced. Honored zvill that state be in the 
annals of history, zchich shall first abolish this z'iolatiton of 
the rights of mankind, and the memories of those zmll be 
held in grateful and everlasting remembrance, zvho shall 
pass the lazv to restore and establish the rights of human 
nature in- Penn-sylvaiiia} We feel ourselves so interested 
on this point, as to go beyond what may be deemed, by 
some, the proper line of our duty, and acquaint you that 
we have reduced this plan to the form of a law, which, if 
acceptable, we shall, in a few days, communicate to you."^ 
Merely heads of a law were suggested before, but, in the 
present instance, Vice-President Bryan had drafted a law. 
The 28-to-23 Assembly were receiving somewhat of a 
bombshell in this part of the message, and found it im- 
possible to avoid the subject and most difficult to decide 
how to answer the Supreme Executive Council this time. 
On February 3, 1779, they considered a resolution stating 
that they could not consent to receive any bill from the 
Council ; but someone suggested appointing a committee to 
prepare an abolition law, "which committee will no doubt 
receive any assistance that may be offered them." The 22 
Wilsonites favored this, but the 27 Bryanites voted against 
it and actually carried, 29 to 21, the dismissal of the whole 
answer as was done before ; and then voted a motion that 

^ Italics inserted by the present writer, for obvious reasons. This shows 
the status of efforts of Vermont to do it by a constitmtional, or Bill of 
Rights, "ought to be." as a logical conclusion of the "free and equal" clause of 
their constitution. It is plain that it had not yet been done by any state, 
anywhere, in an uncontested way. 

^Journals of Assembly, Vol. 1, p. 307. 



170 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

all bills ought to originate "in this house." This was not 
because they did not favor abolition of slavery, for they did 
actually appoint a committee which brought in a law of 
their own, based quite largely on the plan of Vice-President 
Bryan's.^ On February 15th, the Council and Assembly 
had a conference in the latter's chamber, in which President 
Reed disclaimed for the Council any assertion of right of 
proposing a bill, or, as the Assembly construed it, trying 
to take part in legislation ; but that as executors of laws, it 
appeared as if their knowledge of weak or strong points in a 
law might make it a duty to ofifer drafts or heads, submitted 
merely as suggestions, to be used or not as the Assembly 
saw fit. This sensitiveness of the Assembly, even against 
their political leader, Vice-President Bryan, was merely 
the old nearly century-long determination to have no legis- 
lative activity arise in the Executive Council, and they did 
not now hesitate to remind even Vice-President Bryan, as 
well as the whole Council of this, to them, vital feature of 
the state constitution, as they had done more than once in 
colonial days, when the Council was executive, in an in- 
terregnum or in absence of the Governor. Such an inci- 
<lent shows the tremendous traditional instinct against a 
second chamber in Pennsylvania ; and it must be taken into 
consideration to understand the keenness, tenacity and bit- 
terness of this long struggle against a second house, rather 
than for a single chamber — paradoxical as that may sound — 
and one must see in this the basis of Pennsylvania's oppo- 
sition to anything more than one house in the Declarational 
and Confederational union. 

With this sentiment so strongly intrenched, it is not 
strange, especially when, it may be taken for granted, the 
Bryan leaders saw to it that petitions were industriously 
circulated, that by February 25. 1779, with the vote on a 
new Constitutional Convention imminent, that petitions 
should flood the Assembly pro and con, especially con, on 
rescinding the order for such election. One published in 

' This was ptiblished in The Pennsylvania Packet of March 4, 1779, for 
public consideration, and is not in Judge Bryan's phraseology at all, and 
may be the one said to have been drawn by William Lewis. Its publication 
aroused the slave-holders and killed this particular bill. 



AN EXECUTIVE ORGANIZER 171 

the Pennsylvania Packet of 9tb Feb., 1779. has a significant 
paragraph : "Sixthly, Because a single House of Assembl}' 
having hitherto been found sufficient to all the good pur- 
poses of government, except when shackled and oppressed 
with the obstructions and negatives of the Crown of Britain 
and the former Proprietors of Pennsylvania, therefore we 
can see no reason to apprehend, that, as these arbitrary 
restraints and negatives are happily removed, two Houses 
can now be necessary, where one before was sufficient." 

The other side had their advocates in abundance. One 
of the shrewdest of these appeared in the Packet of Febru- 
ary 16, 1779, for although he signed himself "A Constitu- 
tionalist," he quoted from the Supreme Executive Council's 
message suggesting the need for a Court of Errors antl 
Appeals, the following, which shows him on the other side : 
"It appears to us," he quotes, "that the determination of a 
single tribunal binding upon the lives and properties of the 
subjects of the state, without review or revisal, in any case, 
must, from the frailty of Inunan nature only, soon be pro- 
ductive of great inconveniences." He says this contains 
the substance of all that has been or can be said against a 
single chambered legislature ! He claims four-fifths of 
the electorate are disfranchised by test oaths but that three- 
fourths of them are against the present constitution. 

The flood of petitions were taken up on February 27. 
1779. and so large a mass of them were against voting on 
a convention that a vote rescinding the order, for one elec- 
tion was taken that afternoon and it carried by the tremen- 
dous majority of 47 to 7, the seven being four from Phila- 
delphia — Robert Morris. Thomas MifHin, Samuel Meredith 
and George Clymer. and three from Bedford county, all in- 
timate friends and followers of James Wilson. These 
formulated their reasons for dissent, chief among which was 
that the present constitution did not provide political liberty, 
because of centralization of power in one body ; that the 
executive was so limited and unweildly and subordinate to 
the Assembly that it was weak and despotic by turns : that 
the Council of Censors was a dangerous instrument ; the 



172 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

mode of appointing justices and militia was a hindrance to 
justice; and others equally forceful. 

This action of the Assembly was the signal for a great 
uproar. On the one hand it meant the entrenchment of the 
old constitution and put the state government and all its 
defenders on the aggressive. Acts against this constitution 
were now treated as treasonable, when before there would 
have been more flexibility. The laws against profiteers be- 
came more stringent, more care was taken to prevent grains 
being used to make liquors. The confiscation of estates be- 
came more drastic and institutions with any evidence of 
Anti-Constitutional backing were scrutinized more severely. 
All institutions based on Proprietary charters were over- 
hauled and measures of reorganization canvassed. The 
Penn estates were among these, and on February 26th ex- 
Governor John Penn asked for delay in order to prepare 
counsel and a defense. The confiscation of Lawyer Joseph 
Galloway's estate, which included two fine houses at the 
southeast corner of Sixth and Market Streets, led the As- 
sembly to set aside one of them on March 18, 1779, as the 
chief executive mansion, for President Reed. On the 30th 
of that month ex-Governor Penn was ordered not to exer- 
cise any powers under his charter but those concerning 
manors, and six days later the opinion of Chief Justice 
McKean on the status of the Penn estate was ordered 
published. 

Before this time, sometime in February or early March, 
Lawyer James Wilson and his followers organized the Re- 
publican Society with Dr. Franklin's son-in-law, Richard 
Bache, as President, and with eighty-two members, among 
whom were the Morrises, Cadwaladers, Nixons, Hopkinson, 
Mifilins, Rushes, Thomson, and others. They had an 
appeal already for publication to influence the elections, 
when the rescinding order was aimounced. With an ex- 
planation, they issued it on March 25th, in the Packet and 
other papers. In this they expressed their determination 
to resist the tyranny of the present constitution and in 
language that plainly bespoke the writing of Lawyer James 
Wilson. "Let not such a glorious occasion be lost," it reads. 



AN EXECUTIVE ORGANIZER 173 

"Perhaps it may never return. Rivetted oppression, ren- 
dered doubly insupportable by unavailing repentence and 
regret, may be the only portion left you. The distant 
probability that this may be your case and ours fills us with 
the most anxious concern ; and induces us to communicate 
to you a number of particulars, which are either unknown 
or misrepresented. Our honest freedom, we are well 
assured, you will take in good part. Our situation in the 
capital gives us an opportunity of being thoroughly ac- 
quainted with facts and characters and schemes, which are 
not seen, or are seen through a disguise, in the more dis- 
tant places of the state." They warn the public against the 
charge that the opposition springs from Tories, and give 
their own names to prove it false. They say the first ofifices 
in the state government have been offered for their support 
of the constitution, and they have declined. They point out 
their objections to the old constitution: The centralization 
in the Assembly, which they treat at length ; the mode of 
appointing the judiciary; "the jubilee of tyranny" at the 
end of each seven years, in the Council of Censors. They 
say of the Convention : "A set of men, chosen by not a 
tenth part of the inhabitants of the state, met at Philadel- 
phia, and called themselves Representatives of the Freemen 
of Pennsylvania." 

Then comes their news of the rescinding order, and they 
devote over two columns to that. The people of Pennsyl- 
vania have never consented to that constitution, they say. 
Even 16,000 and none would intimate there were more 
petitioners than that, they say, — even 16,000 are not a ma- 
jority of Pennsylvania. 

To this the Secretary of the Council, Timothy Matlack, 
replied in bold, peppery force : He ascribes the Republican 
Society's papers to James Wilson. "To him be the honor 
or the shame of the consequences which may arise from 
them," he says. He thinks these papers will win more for 
the constitution than win away from it. He is quite proud 
of the fact that he, as an office-holder, makes his daily 
bread that way. He warns them that Dr. Franklin was head 
of the Convention and, he says, favored the constitution ; 



174 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

and that his opinion would weigh down that of the whole 
Republican Society put together. He tells them to "count 
how many steps there remains before you, between you and 
the line on which is marked Conspirators." This appeared 
on March 30, 1779, in the Packet and other papers. 

Thereupon the leading friends of the constitution or- 
ganized a rival body called The Constitutional Society, with 
the artist, Charles Wilson Peale, as chairman, and on April 
1, 1779, published in the Packet, their "Principles and 
Articles" of association.^ The preamble and the text show 
an attempt to meet all the points made in the papers of the 
Republican Society. "In making this declaration," they say, 
"we wish to have it known, that the original promoters of 
this Society are among the first, and have in every instance 
been among the foremost, to promote, and afterwards to 
support, the Independence of the United States in general, 
and of this state in particular ; and although an excess of 
service might, if any pretense can be assigned, give some 
color of title to superiority of privilege, yet impelled by the 
same justice and generosity of principle to extend the bless- 
ings of freedom, which first called us forth to defend it, 
we not only disclaim all such dangerous pretensions, but will, 
in behalf of ourselves and others, whether formally con- 
nected with us or not, discountenance and oppose all en- 
croachments or innovations on the common constitutional 
rights to which every citizen of this free state is, or shall 
hereafter be, entitled by allegiance. We, therefore, the sub- 
scribers, members of this Society, to be hereafter called and 
known by the name of the Constitutional Society, do agree 
and unite under the above principles, together with the fol- 
lowing, and such other rules and regulations as this Society 
shall from time to time find it necessary to establish." They 
are going to stand for equal liberty, support the present 
government of both state and union, freedom of ballot, 

^ From the MSS. autobiography of Mr. Peale, to which Mr. Horace E. 
Sellers has kindly given the writer access, it appears that he had just settled in 
Philadelphia from Maryland in the opening days of the revolution and was 
impulsively enlisted in the Bryan party, before he quite realized whit it all 
meant. After he left the Assembly, however, he withdrew from political life, 
apparently in great disgust and regret for much of it; so that he was a mere 
episode in the Bryan party purposes, looking at it as a whole, although very 
prominent at this time and for a couple of years. 



>• 



AN EXECUTIVE ORGANIZER 175 

impartiality to all, without private resentment, actively look 
after the welfare of both state and union, and support the 
majority when the majority support freedom. All of this 
meant a serious campaign during the spring, summer and 
fall of 1779. 

This was five days before the Assembly was to adjourn 
on April 5th; and just eight days previously, Vice-President 
Bryan had been selected by the Assembly to head a com- 
mission, which was to meet a similar commission from Vir- 
ginia at Baltimore to settle that perennially vexing question, 
as to what was the boundary of those two states westward 
of Maryland, whose own joint boundary had been an even 
more vexing one ever since the Quaker colony had received 
her charter in 1681. Vice-President Bryan's colleagues 
were his distinguished pastor, the Rev. Professor John 
Ewing of the College of Philadelphia and the celebrated 
astronomer, David Rittenhouse, now State Treasurer, in 
possession of the prize-money from the Sloop Active, and 
holding it against the uncertain power of the United States 
government. This distinguished trio received their instruc- 
tions from the Assembly on April 3, 1779, two days before 
adjournment, to the general effect that they were to arrange 
a true and permanent boundary, if possible; but, if not, a 
temporary one. They at once began a correspondence with 
the Virginia commissioners, the President of William and 
Mary College, Rev. James Madison, who was later to be- 
come the first Episcopal Bishop of Virginia, and Robert 
Andrews ; and arranged to meet in Baltimore on August 
31, 1779. Vice-President Bryan, as the highest ranking 
officer, presided. They did not have any of the old perplex- 
ing and complicated questions of the boundaries between 
Maryland, on the one side, and Delaware and Pennsylvania, 
on the other, settled ten years before, in the "Mason and 
Dixon Line," in which also the Rev. Professor Ewing had 
had a part. That line, so far as Pennsylvania was con- 
cerned, was her accepted boundary, so far as Maryland was 
concerned, and all she desired was its extension from the 
Delaware river five degrees \vestward, as the charter pro- 
vided. The point from which Pennsylvania desired to 



176 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

measure this five degrees was, naturally, the western-most 
point of her Delaware river line, which, by the way, would 
be on the Mason and Dixon line, as far as Maryland ex- 
tended westward. Technically, of course, then, the western 
boundary of Pennsylvania would then have to parallel the 
windings of the Delaware ; but Pennsylvania thought that 
hardly feasable and proposed a meridian line northward 
from the end of the five degrees, measured on the Mason- 
Dixon line. 

Before entering upon the proceedings at Baltimore on 
August 31, 1779, it will be interesting to get a glimpse of 
Baltimore through the eyes of Vice-President Bryan : "This 
town," he wrote President Reed in the earlier part of that 
day, "filled with industrious people, has suddenly sprouted 
out to the size of 1000 dwellings in a country of indolence. 
The country hereabouts is a poor gravelly soil. They talk 
of fine land in the necks which lie eastward towards the 
Bay, and of good farms ten or twelve miles northwest 
inland. But I fancy the town is rather too large for the 
neighboring people, slothful as they seem, to supply. 
Meadow, they seem to have little, scarce any marsh on their 
rivers have I seen. All the shores are gravelly and dry. 
This inattention of the Marylanders to the vast advantage 
of the Baltimore market is easily accounted for, from look- 
ing back to the fettered state of trade formerly, as con- 
ducted by a combination of little Scotch dealers, who kept 
the people in such bondage as stifled all industry. The cash 
trade of the land and the building this town has indeed 
removed many obstacles, but the habits of a whole people, 
educated and confirmed in indolency, are hardly surmount- 
able. The readiest remedy certainly would be to introduce 
some new farmers, bred in a land of industry. Against 
this, the difficulty of getting lands for them is urged ; for 
the law of inheritance in the oldest son, the difficulty of 
selling real estate for common debts, entails, and the shame 
of parting with paternal lands, combine against strangers. 
An unaccountable jealousy, too, against this collection of 
strangers, as the inhabitants of the town generally are, is 
no small embarassment. Narrowness and stupidity pre- 



AN EXECUTIVE ORGANIZER 177 

vented the houses here, which are on bad ground, that is to 
say, low, flat and under the hills, from being planned on 
an elegant spot two miles lower, — a narrow point between 
two basins, with deep water adjoining, and high ground 
between. At Baltimore they soon found a great impedi- 
ment to business ; their ships of large size, for want of 
depth, being obliged to lie a mile off the wharf. This last 
circumstance has induced many to build at the place where 
the vessels lie, and thus a village is grown up there on a 
remarkable neck of land called the Point, and the place is 
growing fast. Both there and here we find brick buildings 
going forward, for rents are very high. On taking the 
number of persons in this town and the Point, which are 
indeed called one town, there appeared not above five to 
a family, which leads to a suspicion that we [Philadelphia] 
count our citizens too largely. 

"Butter is at four dollars a pound. Hay £90 to £120 
per ton. Vegetables very dear. Beef (less than our price) 
10s. 

"This place was formerly more subject to fevers and 
agues than now. The stillness of the basin before the town, 
and some low ground, since filled in or drained, has altered 
this. But there is scarce any mud to be seen ; all is gravel. 
The tide is very slack everywhere, and rises only four feet. 
It swells, but has no current at the town. All the inhabi- 
tants seem healthy. Indeed, all around this place, the na- 
ture of the soil promises better for health than our town. 
The very spot of Baltimore is, indeed, too flat, and. under 
high ground, but is a bed of coarse gravel. 

"They raise no tobacco in these parts, or at least very 
little. That article is had from Virginia on easy terms by 
water. By this, they trade to Europe at this time on a 
better footing than we do. 

"The fort here I have not seen, but I perceive that a 
small body of men might pass up the main river, Patapsco, 
without difficulty, come behind it and do what they please, 
"by a march of two miles only."* 

" Something of this kind was attempted, and nearly with success, by the 
British in 1814. [Foot-note to this letter, in The Life and Correspondence of 
President Reed, p. 134.] 



178 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Turning now to their proceedings on the last of August, 
1779, it will be well to recall that the old controversy, which 
the Mason and Dixon line settled, hinged chiefly on the 
construction of the term "Fortieth degree:" was it a line 
or a space? If it was a space, then the Pennsylvania line 
would go far down into Maryland to the 39° line of lati- 
tude ; but if it was a line, the 40° of latitude, then even the 
site of Philadelphia would be in Maryland. The Mason- 
Dixon line was a compromise, in this direction, more favor- 
able to Maryland, because it gave that colony most of that 
degree, namely, 39° 43' 18". The President of William 
and Mary, in the absence of accurate surveys concerning 
the head of the Ohio and Pittsburgh, aimed to get as near 
Pittsburgh, which, indeed, under the late Lord Duumore 
they had actually claimed, and even possessed, seem to have 
made two proposals: 1. To extend the Mason-Dixon line 
to the Ohio and, presumably, let that be with the Allegheny 
or that and a five degree line from the iiorther)t~n^ost point 
on the Delaware — which is farther east — be the south and 
western line of the state. This, considering that Virginia 
claimed all lands west of Pennsylvania, gave Virginia more 
of Pennsylvania territory north of the Ohio. A tradition 
exists that Judge Bryan opposed this, and successfully.^ 
2. The second was also on the basis of the northern-most 
point five degrees west of the Delaware, a point they so 
desired to establish, that they offered to divide the 40° 
space equally west of Maryland to a meridian through that 
point. "The Virginia gentlemen," says Vice-President 
Bryan in the above-mentioned letter, of the 31st, "offer to 
divide exactly the 40th degree with us. which I wish to 
accept. Mr. Rittenhouse is not averse from my idea." he 
adds, implying that Professor Ewing, who had aided in 
settling the Mason-Dixon line, was averse; and no doubt 
he expresses the latter's idea in his next sentence, when he 
says : "Perhaps we would be as well off with Mason and 
Dixon's line continued. Then we should have no further 
discussion with Maryland" — in which, it appears the Vice- 

^ Lecture by Neville B. Craig on The Controversy Betiveen Pernisyhania 
and Virginia About the Boundary Line, p. 23. 




Prepared by the author frojii original sou 



AN EXECUTIVE ORGANIZER 179 

President's vote was decisive in this as well as the other,, 
and when they closed the meeting tliat afternoon the joint 
commission had so decided : "We [naming the commission- 
ers] do hereby mutually, in behalf of our respective states, 
ratify and confirm the following agreement, viz : To ex- 
tend Mason and Dixon's line due west five degrees of 
longitude, to be computed from the river Delaware, for the 
southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and that a meridian, 
drawn from the Western extremity thereof, to the North- 
ern limit of said state, be the Western boundary of said 
State forever." Vice-President Bryan also had the honor 
later of leading the Assembly in ratifying this agreement, 
so that this settlement of the state's boundary was due pri- 
marily to him, and the Assembly instructions of April 3rd 
were carried out in the permanent form that was desired.^ 
The strained relations between Pennsylvania's Supreme 
Executive Council, above stairs at the State House, and the 
Congress, in the lower east room, over the Sloop Active, 
needed the most wise and diplomatic care on both sides 
during the early spring and summer days preceding Vice- 
President Bryan's Baltimore visit. Financial afifairs of state 
and union were in serious condition during these months, 
and on April 12th, announcement of more sales of con- 
fiscated estates was made. In the vast amount of detail of 
government and support of the state's part in the war an- 
other point came up early in July that was of considerable 
significance. Two members of the Board of Trustees of 
the College of Philadelphia at Fourth and Arch Streets had 
been under suspicion as British sympathizers, and, early in 
July, the Supreme Executive Council began to consider in- 
vestigation of that institution and informally notified cer- 
tain members of the College Board that such was the case,, 
intimating that it might be well not to hold the current com- 
mencement. On July 8th the College Board appointed three 
of their number, Messrs. Willing, Powell and Hopkins in- 
formally to notify the President of the Supreme Executive 
Council that they had passed the commencement, but hoped 

^ Vice-President Bryan was absent from Council from August 23 to Septem- 
ber 5, 1779, at the time of his Baltimore visit. 



180 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

purely legal measures would soon be taken according to 
law, so that they might defend themselves. They also pro- 
ceeded to secure vacancies in the suspected part of the Board 
and filled them with John Cadwalader and Lawyer James 
Wilson, who had recently been selected as counsel for the 
French government. The choice of Lawyer Wilson, the 
leader of the Republican Society and chief opponent of the 
present constitution, was not a very diplomatic move under 
present conditions; for, was he not the defender of Roberts 
and Carlisle and other accused Tories? Besides, on the 
previous Alay 24th [1779], the rival Constitutional Society, 
Charles Wilson Peale, the artist, and Astronomer and State 
Treasurer David Ritteiihouse, leaders, had had a meeting 
on high prices of supplies and concluded Mr. Wilson's 
friend, Robert Morris, was the leader in raising prices. At 
an adjourned meeting on July 27th in the State House yard, 
when General Cadwalader, among other Republicans in at- 
tendance, sought to defend Mr. Morris, and about a hun- 
dred men with clubs prevented it, the former. General Cad- 
walader and his friends, went over to the College yard, 
elected Mr. Morris chairman and, while defending Mr. 
Morris, pointed to the depreciation of the currency, both 
state and continental, and stringency in supplies as the 
general cause of high prices. Lawyer Wilson, Dr. Rush, 
and six others were appointed to publish an account of the 
meeting. In view of the fact that all this was supposed to 
be a part of a fierce campaign to capture the Assembly at 
the next election, there were serious enough elements in 
conjunction, about the time Vice-President Bryan was re- 
turning from Baltimore, almost to cause revolution and 
public disorder in Pennsylvania. The most serious part of 
the situation was the depreciation of the currency and the 
consequent rise of prices, and the resulting antagonism to 
all merchants. Many efforts were made to devise some 
l^lan to relieve the situation, one of them being a regulation 
of prices and another a plan of raising money by subscrip- 
tion. Indeed the situation strongly reminds one of the 
American situation in the summer of 1919 after the great 
war. 



AN EXECUTIVE ORGANIZER 181 

While this turmoil was on, the Assembly was due to 
meet on the day before Vice-President Bryan completed his 
boundary work at Baltimore. It was ten days, however, 
before a quorum was secured, namely, on September 9th 
[1779]. Of course the financial situation was uppermost 
and the raising of the $45,000,000 asked by Congress 
was appalling. But the event of the day was the message 
from the Supreme Executive Council, containing recom- 
mendations already indicated. First, as to the Proprietary 
estates : "The experience of mankind," says the Council, 
of which Vice-President Bryan was so dominant a mem- 
ber, "the practice of other countries and nations, the senti- 
ments of the greatest writers on government, and even our 
own observation during this great contest, in which the 
various principles that govern the human mind have been 
drawn forth into view and action, we think fully demon- 
strate, that neither the peace, liberty or safety of Pennsyl- 
vania can be deemed secure while this powerful interest, 
attached in all its branches to the powers we have abjured 
and abandoned, is permitted to retain its full force and in- 
fluence among us. At present the subject is disentangled 
from all other considerations of a public nature ; should it. 
by delay, mingle itself with the negotiations of a general 
peace, we may long lament, and posterity will justly blame 
our indolence or timidity, which has lost the precious op- 
portunity of rescuing this state from one of the appendages 
of our former bondage, and placing it on the same level of 
liberty, interest, tranquility and independence with its sister 
states." 

Then they take up the College of Philadelphia: "The 
constitution of this state,'' they proceed, "with a wisdom 
and foresight which does honor to its framers, having con- 
sidered the education of youth as a matter of great im- 
portance to the interests of society and order of govern- 
ment, we have been led to an enquiry into the nature and 
government of those institutions which at present subsist. 
It is with concern we observe a general neglect of this great 
duty, both in town and country, while the growing attention 
of other states invites the youth from this, and must pro- 



182 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

duce effects equally repugnant to public benefit and private 
convenience. The principal institution in this state, founded 
on the most free and catholic principles, raised and cherished 
by the hand of public bounty, appears by its charter to have 
allied itself so closely to the government of Britain, by 
making the allegiance of its governors to that state a pre- 
requisite to any official act, that it might have been pre- 
sumed they would have sought the aid of government for 
an establishment consistent with the revolution, and con- 
formable to the great changes of policy and government. 
But, whatever have been the motives, we cannot think the 
good people of this state can or ought to rest satisfied, or 
the protection of government be extended to our institution, 
framed with such manifest attachment to the British govern- 
ment, and conducted with a general inattention to the author- 
ity of the state. The influence of a seat of learning upon 
the peace and good order of a government have, we think, 
been too fully exemplified in the country from which we 
have separated, to permit any well regulated state to neglect 
or overlook it. How far there has been any deviation from 
the liberal ground of its first establishment, and a pre- 
eminence given to some societies in prejudice to others 
equally meritorious, the former enquiries of your honorable 
house will enable you to determine ; for us, it is sufficient 
to declare, that as learning or science are of no party or sect, 
we wish to see them promoted on the most liberal principles, 
giving to every denomination of Christians equal rights and 
privileges. As corporations compose a species of internal 
government, in all great changes they have been considered 
as objects of public attention and care, that their subordina- 
tion, obedience and support to the supreme and governing 
powers of the state might be secured and preserved. This 
is a just and necessary policy, we think worthy of imitation, 
as the object of the institution, whether civil, religious or 
charitable, may at the same time remain inviolate." 

Again also, among other things, they recur to the free- 
dom of slaves: "Our anxiety to perpetuate and extend the 
blessings of freedom, and enlarge the circle of humanity, 
induce us to remind you of the bill for emancipating the 



AN EXECUTIVE ORGANIZER 183 

children born of negro and mulatto parents. We wish to 
see you give the complete sanction of law to this noble and 
generous purpose, and adorn the annals of Pennsylvania 
with this bright display of justice and public virtue." 

Of these paragraphs of the Supreme Executive Council 
message, the last two, above, on the College and the negro, 
seem to have all the ear-marks of Judge Bryan's composi- 
tion, while the first, on the Proprietary estates, sounds more 
like the language of President Reed. These two subjects, 
too, were to appear publicly as among his particular inter- 
ests. For Vice-President Bryan had a very constructive 
mind and an intuition for basal principles, quite evident, 
for example, in his comments on the structureof Baltimore 
ten days before. To his mind it was inconsistent with pro- 
fessions of and struggle for liberty to hold slavery of a 
race in the law of the land. x'Xs a judge and statesman, he 
could not see how a charter of a college should not be re- 
newed with the renewal of political institutions, and, no 
doubt, as a Presbyterian, he viewed the dominance of the 
Church of England in the College of Philadelphia as an un- 
healthy condition for a republican state. This was three 
3^ears before the Episcopalians even considered breaking off 
from the mother church. Last of all he was a profound 
politician, and was quite capable of directing strategic move- 
ments that would destroy not only the roots, when the trunk 
of Anglican institutions had been removed, but knew how 
to strike at the financial and political elements which opposed 
the old constitution in its new form. Petitions, which had 
proved so efl:'ective in silencing the enemies of this funda- 
mental law, were again utilized to influence action on the 
Proprietary estates especially. On the next day the two 
subjects, these estates and the College, were assigned to 
committees, one member of both, John Smiley, of Lancaster 
county, being destined to be one of Judge Bryan's most use- 
ful supporters. The slave-holders, however, were too 
powerful for them to show great alacrity in pressing that 
subject. 

On Monday afternoon, September 13 [1779], Vice- 
President Bryan, Professor Ewing and ]Mr. Rittenhouse 



1S4 BRYAN AXD PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

appeared in the east room and reported in person the re- 
sults of their negotiations at Baltimore with the Virginia 
Commissioners, and on the 16th it was referred to a large 
committee. On the 23rd there came the first test vote on 
the Proprietary estates in a very full attendance, on the 
point of calling in ex-Governor John Penn as a witness, 
and it was voted down 37 to 14, most of the 14 being friends 
of Lawyer Wilson, one being his brother-in-law, Col. Mark 
Bird. The bill was ordered published for public considera- 
tion. 

The Committee on the College and Academy of Phila- 
delphia reported on the 24th of September in favor of re- 
chartering it as a state institution. A hearing was requested 
and assigned for Wednesday, the 29th. Meanwhile on Mon- 
day, the 27th, the Assembly asked the Council and the 
Supreme Court to be present on that day and had a long 
conference with the Council as to the proceedings. The 
Attorney-General, Mr. Sergeant, was counsel for the state 
and ]\Iessrs. Wilson and Lewis for the College. The hear- 
ing lasted during three days ; and on Saturday, October 2, 
1779, when the first test vote came on the question as to 
whether the opinion of the Supreme Court members present 
should be taken, it was decided that that opinion was not 
needed by a vote of 31 to 18, an almost purely party vote; 
and when a vote was taken on whether a committee should 
be appointed to re-charter the institution, it was 33 to 18, 
the real strength of the Bryan party. Vice-President Bryan 
was thus guiding the Assembly from a distance, so to speak, 
and it must have occurred to him that here in the Assembly 
was a greater field for his services than in the executive ; 
for the Assembly needed his leadership at this time. Ten 
of the sixteen presented a written protest against the As- 
sembly acting in a judicial capacity and asserting that the 
action was primarily against persons among the trustees who 
opposed the constitution of Pennsylvania. 

While this action against the College of Philadelphia 
was being taken on Saturday, October 2nd, the long con- 
tinued public unrest of the summer and the excitement of 
the approaching election had finally nerved certain persons 



AN EXECUTIVE ORGANIZER 185 

to meet and agree to placard the town on Alonday for a 
meeting on the commons at Tenth and Arch Streets, de- 
signed to take matters into the hands of a mixture of mihtia 
and mob and deport a number of objectionable persons, 
especially certain merchants, lawyers and Tories, as all were 
assumed to be. Indeed some had already been arrested by 
them and imprisoned awaiting deportation. Dr. James 
Hutchinson and Charles Wilson Peale, the artist, who had 
been active in the May meeting, were asked to lead them ; 
and they reluctantly went along in the hopes of dissuading 
them from any such action. With Lawyer Wilson defend- 
ing the so-called Tories, the College and the case of the 
Proprietary estates, it was very easy for them to unite upon 
him as the chief offender to be marked for deportation, 
along with his friend Robert Morris. Friends of both 
gathered at the City Tavern, on Second Street above Walnut, 
and, when they saw the mob coming down Second went 
down to Third and Walnut Streets, on the southwest cor- 
ner of which, opposite the Peters and White residences, 
was Lawyer Wilson's home. There were then a number 
of their friends in the house and they had armed themselves 
prepared for defense. Word was sent to the Assembly at 
Fifth Street, who in turn notified President Reed, at the 
executive residence at Sixth and Market streets ; the As- 
sembly dispersed, and by mid-afternoon the mob was at 
the "Fort Wilson," as the residence was afterwards called; 
and both sides were firing amid several casualties on both 
sides, when President Reed and the First City Troop ar- 
rived and many of the rioters were arrested.^ On Wednes- 
day, the 5th, the Supreme Executive Council issued a proc- 
lamation directing all concerned in the affair both on the 
street and in the house to surrender themselves to justice. 
On October 7, 1779, in the absence of President Reed, 
Vice-President Bryan presided in the Council room in the 
upper west room of the State House, as he did also on 
the 8th, 9th, and 11th, in the first session only of the last 
mentioned day. On the 8th, he sent a message to the As- 

^ For the most complete account of this affair see The Life and IVritivgs 
of James Wilson, by Burton Alva Konkle, Vol. 1, Chap. X. 



186 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

sembly urging them to supply General Washington's call 
for 1500 men; on the 9th one proposing a mode of aiding 
those in the city who were sufifering for food ; and on the 
11th issued a proclamation of embargo on food shipments 
out of the country, because of the difficulty found in secur- 
ing supplies sufficient for the fleet of the French allies. 
These were Vice-President Bryan's last services in that 
office and this the last day of service. On the 9th the As- 
sembly had voted that, on account of falling prices, that 
President Reed should have £20,000 for his past year's 
services, and Vice-President Bryan £10,000, with varying 
increases for other state officers. The previous day, the 
10th of October, in view of the state election on the 12th 
instant, the Assembly adjourned after recommending to 
their successors a number of bills, among them the "Act 
for the gradual abolition of slavery," for vesting the Pro- 
prietary estates in the commonwealth, and to alter the 
charter of the College of Philadelphia and its subordinate 
schools. 

Let it be recalled that had Judge Bryan's election to the 
Council occurred at the regular time, November 5, 1776, 
his three-year term would end on that day of the present 
year; or if the three-years' term dated from his actual elec- 
tion it would run to the 21st of the following February. In 
any case his term could not extend beyond March 5th next ; 
and, as it was the rule that new elections of both President 
and Vice-President occurred immediately after the annual 
election of the Assembly, and also that his successor in 
Council should be chosen at this election on the next day, 
these circumstances would have suggested the advisability 
of his resignation on the 11th, even if it were not already 
determined that his leadership in the Assembly the coming 
3^ear was a necessity in the important reorganization of the 
whole commonwealth that was now about to take place. 
Therefore Vice-President Bryan offered his resignation 
that afternoon of the 11th of October, the eve of election, 
in the following communication to the Council : "I, George 
Bryan, who for upward of two years last past have held 
and enjoyed the office of \^ice-President of the Supreme 



AN EXECUTIVE ORGANIZER 187 

Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 
do, on this eleventh day of October, in the year of our Lord 
one thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine, resign the 
said office. As witness my hand. George Bryan." This 
did not close his service as Councillor, however, for he sat 
in that capacity on the 12th and the 13th, on the latter of 
which days, the returns of the previous day's election were 
read, that elected his successor and also made him a member 
of the next Assembly, soon to organize in their room across 
the hall, above the one in which Congress sat. 

Judge Bryan was at the close of this period, without 
question, the most powerful leader of Pennsylvania, in 
purely state affairs. In a very true sense, as a leader of 
the Constitutionalists, he had determined the constitution of 
the commonwealth and for three years had guided his party 
in establishing it, in the midst of the most critical period of 
the revolution. When that critical period was past and the 
most able forces of finance, learning and social conservative 
life had organized to overthrow this constitution, which he 
deemed the adapted old Lloydean constitution, under which 
Pennsylvania had prospered for three-quarters of a century, 
he guided with a steady hand the new ship of state to an 
even safer anchorage. In these past nearly three years as 
Vice-President and President, he had had such unqualified 
confidence reposed in him by his supporters, had been so 
easily the chief organizer of the executive branch, and so 
able and industrious an administrator, that even during that 
greater part of the time when he was not President of Penn- 
sylvania in name, he was so in fact more than either Presi- 
dent Wharton or President Reed, the first of whom was 
principally the military administrator and the second a new 
convert, whom Judge Bryan had brought into the executive 
chiefly as a foil to Lawyer James Wilson, the leader of the 
element opposed to the constitution. In this capacity he 
had initiated most of the vitally reconstructive legislation 
brought forward in the Assembly, in which he had seen to 
it that there was no dominant leader of his party's big ma- 
jority. The dependence of his party upon him during this 
period is not so obvious, because what he did through 



1S8 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

leaders in the Constitutional Convention was through private 
personal channels, of which there was no public record; 
and also because the records of the Executive Council do 
not indicate these personal activities, as those of the legisla- 
tive Assembly do, and as those of the next sessions of it 
were to do so remarkably as to furnish abundant interpre- 
tation of all that had gone on before in both his public and 
private life. He had been a defender of the old constitution 
during a large part of his quarter of a century as a citizen, 
and that too against its most powerful enemy. Dr. Franklin ; 
he had interpreted and established the principles of that 
constitution as a jurist for half of that period; as he had 
been selected as a jurist in the metropolis of the American 
shore to interpret it, he had been chosen to defend it in the 
first attacks upon it by the government of Great Britain. 
This long defense of it made him the natural leader and 
organizer of all those who held the old constitution in 
reverence; and he was as naturally followed in his purpose 
to secure its preservation in 1776, while fighting a war for 
its existence. It was, therefore, his hand that had guided 
its establishment in the past three years, under the new 
order ; and now it was his hand which was to cut out, from 
under every part of it, the roots of both Proprietary and 
Royal powers, traditions and usages, and make the old 
constitution in fact, what its founder. David Lloyd, had 
often been charged with doing — the constitution of a wholly 
free people. 



CHAPTER XIV 

The Leader and Organizer of the' Legislation of the 

Assembly 

1779 

The election of October 12, 1779, may be rightly called 
a "land-slide" for the Constitutionalists, led by the ex-\^ice- 
President, Judge Bryan. The city of Philadelphia removed 
Robert Morris and put Judge Bryan in his place and put 
the chairman of the Constitutionalist Society, the artist, 
Charles Wilson Peale, to succeed George Clymer, another 
Wilson follower. Indeed the city delegation was solidly 
Constitutionalist, and the rest of the state was so nearly 
like it that the opposition was insignificant. Judge Bryan's 
party was in absolute command of the situation. Speaker 
Bayard was returned, and, although no q#brum was secured 
on the 25th and, indeed, not until the afternoon of Tuesday, 
November 2, 1779, he was again chosen Speaker and that 
vigorous, but somewhat erratic patriot-publicist, Thomas 
Paine, was made Clerk, following in the early footsteps of 
Benjamin Franklin. The selection of Judge Bryan for the 
first chairmanship of a committee, namely that to notify 
the Supreme Executive Council that the Assembly was 
ready for business, was a key-note appointment from which 
this Assembly was seldom to depart, as was indicated by 
his headship of the second one, also, namely, that to take 
up the recommendations of the previous Assembly. The 
committee on rules was headed by one of his city colleagues, 
Mr. Shubart. 

Then legislation began, and, as might well have been 
predicted, the first bill to be called up was judge Bryan's 
most beloved project, a bill for the gradual abolition of 
negro slavery, with himself as chairman, to bring in a new 
bill. To understand the status of this subject at this time, a 

189 



190 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

letter from a Philadelphian, whose name is not given in its 
publication on Christmas day following, in the Packet, but 
who, in all probability was Judge Bryan himself, and writ- 
ten to the pastor of one of the Presbyterian churches in a 
neighboring county evidently referred to in it, — may throw 
much light on the subject: 

"Philadelphia, December 11, 1779 
"Reverend and Dear Sir, 

"A bill was brought into the Assembly of Pennsylvania, 
during the last year, for the gradual abolition of slavery. 
The benevolence, justice and policy of this design, was, 
upon publication in the usual manner, much approved by 
all parties and denominations here ; and indeed throughout 
the State : Whilst it attracted the attention, and invited the 
imitation of the other United States of America.^ In fact 
it gained the applause of the generous and the wise of our 
new-found nation in every part. From Europe the inten- 
tion must certainly receive the highest honors ; for the 
friends of America, and of human nature, in that part of 
the world, are astonished to find that a people so enlightened 
to their own rights, as we are, should remain blind to the 
case of the poor Africans whom we hold in servitude ; and 
that, in any age of civilization, great and liberal, such an 
instance of barbarousness, as slavery, should continue and 
prevail throughout the settlements, made by the descendants 
of their common ancestors in America. 

"The bill met with little opposition in the House of 
Assembly. Coinciding with, and exactly pursuing the very 
first words and the main principles of our Constitution, 
'that all men are born equally free and independent, and 
that they have certain natural, inherent and unalienable 
rights,' a member of the legislature of Pennsylvania must 
feel himself to be but awkwardly employed in opposing 
such a design. In short great and general countenance was 
given to it. But how manifestly soever this bill was founded 
in equity and the Constitution, yet, as mistake or prejudice 



^ Here is further confirmation that the action of Vice-President Bryan 
in 1777 was imitated by Vermont, and later by Massachusetts. 




State House, Philadelphia, in 1779 
From the portrait &f M. (^.erard by Charles Wilson Peale, at Congress Hall, 
now lirst reproduced. (The white cross on the second floor indicates the Assembly 
room in which Representative Bryan served in 1779-1780.) 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP 191 

might suppose it to have an injurious effect upon a species 
of property, in which some of our sister States abound, and 
on which their husbandry greatly dependeth, it was thought 
prudent that not only our own citizens, but also those of the 
other United States, should be fully apprized of the benevo- 
lent intentions of the friends of the bill. In this view, I 
suppose the late Assembly forbore to give it the forms of 
law. 

"If we may decide from the general favor the plan 
has met with, in this place, and the silence of the owners of 
slaves, in every part of the state except one, the late As- 
sembly had certainly the general consent of their constitu- 
ents to pass the bill. The exception arises from a memorial 
against the bill, presented last fall [1779], to the late House, 
b}^ an inconsiderable number of persons, residing in the 
western part of your county. Considering how long the 
bill had lain before the public, the smallness of this opposi- 
tion is a very considerable circumstance in its favor, and 
at the same time very honorable to the citizens of the state, 
who possess slaves within it. It shows that they have care- 
fully considered the foundation of the present resistance 
to Great Britain, and that they intend to act consistently 
with the Constituion. 

"On this public testimony in favor of abrogating slavery, 
by a slow, but effectual operation, the present Assembly 
have resumed it, and, after the usual reading, have directed 
that it be again published for consideration, by the vote of 
a decisive majority. Indeed the longer this benign proposal 
has been contemplated and the oftener it has been brought 
up to view, the higher advances it makes in public approba- 
tion ; the few, whose strict regard to their interest, perhaps, 
prejudices them against so benevolent a design, being 
ashamed to object. It may be observed that, by the invasion 
of this state, and the possession that the enemy obtained of 
this city and neighborhood, great part of the slaves here- 
abouts were enticed away by the British army. The plan 
has now obtained such ascendancy over the mind of the 
public, that, like all useful designs, secure of success, it 
must take effect ; so that if the present Assembly should 



192 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

decline, from any misapprehension, to erect so splendid a 
monument to their name, the next will probably be compelled 
by the general voice. 

"You may be assured that in other states, the highest 
applauses are given to our legislature, upon this occasion. 
Even in Virginia the people are fully sensible of the weighty 
hindrances to public strength, morality and industry, which 
a multitude of slaves introduces : They wish to be able to 
extricate their state out of these difficulties, and have lately 
passed laws to restrain and correct in some means the mis- 
chief of them. The Eastern states discover a great disposi- 
tion to relieve the oppressed, and put an end to thraldom. 
I have no doubt of the immediate concurrence of some of 
them, for the small number of their bondmen will enable 
them to do it with less inconvenience. Indeed this sera of 
founding a new empire in America seems to be designed 
by Providence for the extinction of so savage a practice, 
inconsistent with civilization, morality and the true spirit 
of Christianity. 

'Tn the meantime it is irksome to find, that these few 
opposers of the bill should generally be members of the 
Presbyterian Churches, which are otherwise remarkable for 
their zeal and for their exertion in the cause of freedom. 
If I could procure a copy of their memorial, I would take 
notice of everything they have urged, for it is lengthy and 
argumentative. But the piece is not to be found among 
the public papers, since the Assembly rose. [In October.] 
The Clerk supposes that some friend of the signers hath 
withdrawn it. To such parts of it, however, as I can recol- 
lect. I intend to reply. 

"First, then, these objectors set up the right of the 
master to the offspring of his female slaves, upon the allow- 
ance of Moses to the Israelites, Leviticus xxv, 46, to pur- 
chase bondmen of their heathen neighbors, and to buy the 
children of strangers living among them, and to hold these 
and their posterity forever as an inheritance : which goes 
much farther than the case of captives, taken in war, and 
their children. 

"On this I would observe that Moses legislated for a 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP 193 

people in a very low and debased state of society, who, hav- 
ing been themselves in bondage in Egypt, were fully 
habituated to the practice of slavery ; a people grossly 
ignorant and besotted with the usages and superstitions of 
the country from which they had been just delivered; a 
people now taken under the dominion of the Almighty, as 
their earthly King, and secluded from intercourse and com- 
merce with the rest of the world, for great and extraor- 
dinary purposes to be accomplished in His own time. It 
is manifest that laws and regulations, backed and aided by 
a succession of miracles, if properly adapted to the cir- 
cumstances of such a people, and to attemper them to the 
divine will and purpose, must be of a nature unsuitable to 
any other nation. 

"A great man of our time, Montesquieu, on this subject 
says, that 'Solon being asked if the laws he had given to 
the Athenians were the best?' He replied, 'I have given 
them the best they were able to bear:' — a fine expression, 
that ought to be perfectly understood by all legislators. 
When Divine Wisdom said to the Jeews : 'I have given you 
precepts, which are not good,' Ezekiel xx, 25, this signified 
that they had only a relative goodness ; which is the sponge 
that wipes out all the difficulties that are to be found in the 
law of Moses. Spirit of Lan's, Vol. 1, 435. In fact we 
can in no other manner reconcile many of his statutes to 
the perfections of God, than by supposing, they were made 
in accommodation to the habits of the nation to which he 
delivered them, and to the circumstances and usages of the 
country and time, in which this very extraordinary Re- 
public flourished. Learned men have judged, that some of 
his ordinances were contrived to counteract the supersti- 
tions and abominations of Egypt, and to preserve this select 
people from the idolatry of their neighbors : to which, it 
appears, they were remarkably prone. The low state of 
society and improvement, in which Moses found them, cer- 
tainly occasioned the establishment of the cities of refuge, 
for the innocent manslayer to flee to from the avenger of 
blood ; for the rude method of punishing murder, hereby 
countenanced, never subsisted, unless among barbarians or 



194 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

savages ; accordingly we find it in full vigor among our 
Indian neighbors. The law of war, Deut. xx, 13, 'to put 
all the males to the edge of the sword,' could be exercised 
only by a very uncivilized nation. We are assured, by the 
highest authority, that the law of divorce, in the Jewish 
code, wrong in its nature, was indulged to the hardness of 
their hearts. And not to multiply instances: polygamy must 
have been regulated by Moses (for, as he asknowledges two 
wives, he doth not forbid it), from the same motives. Dent. 
xxi, 15, 16, 17, — 'If a man have two wives, one beloved 
and another hated,' that is, one preferred to the other, 'and 
they have borne him children — if the first born be hers 
that was hated, that he may not make the son of the beloved, 
first born, before the son of the hated, which is indeed first 
born.' Had ]\Ioses intended to determine the birth-right on 
the Christian law of one wife, he would have used other 
words. The priority of marriage would have afforded a 
very simple rule ; or rather, he was wrong to speak of an- 
other wife, whose son was, however, to be preferred. Yet, 
as we find, that more male infants are born than female, it 
must be contrary to equity and nature, that any man should 
indulge himself in a plurality of wives. 

"Nothing can be wilder than to draw examples from, the 
law of Aloses into our policy and jurisprudence, whose 
government rests wholly on compact and human authority, 
and whose customs, habits and state of civilization differ in 
every respect from the state of the Israelites, at their 
exodus from the bondage." He proceeds to show how 
Christian princes have wrought havoc by so doing, and to 
what absurdities it led them. The Memorialists made much 
of the point that Christ was silent on slavery ; and he 
answers this with his usual patience and learning, pointing 
to the "golden rule" and the Apostles' actual teachings 
against it. Judge Bryan sought unanimity for the first 
abolition act like his great antagonist, James Wilson, fought 
for unanimity of the people of the United States in declaring 
independence. 

It will be remembered that, when Judge Bryan's bill 
was offered to the previous Assembly they were sensitive 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP 195 

on the subject of a bill originating from the outside and, 
although adopting the general principle of gradual aboli- 
tion and his main ideas, made a bill of their own in tlieir 
own language. Judge Bryan now produced his own bill 
and in his own language :^ 

"When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition 
to which the arms and tyranny of Great Britain were ex- 
erted to reduce us," the preamble of the bill begins, "when 
we look back on the variety of dangers to which we have 
been exposed, and how miraculously our wants in many in- 
stances have been supplied and our deliverances wrought, 
when even hope and human fortitude have become unequal 
to the conflict, we are unavoidably led to a serious and 
grateful sense of the manifold blessings which we have un- 
deservedly received from the hand of that Being from whom 
every good and perfect gift cometh. Impressed with these 
ideas, we conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that 
it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to 
others, which hath been extended to us, and a release from 
that state of thraldom, to which we ourselves were tyranni- 
cally doomed, and from which we have now every prospect 
of being delivered. It is not for us to enquire why, in the 
creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the several parts of 
the earth were distinguished by a difiference in feature or 
complexion. It is sufficient to know that all are the work 
of an Almighty hand. We find in the distribution of the 
human species that the most fertile as well as the most 
barren parts of the earth are inhabited by men of complex- 
ions different from ours and from each other, from whence 
we may reasonably, as well as religiously infer, that He, 
who placed them in their various situations, hath extended 
equally His care and protection to all, and that it becometh 
not us to counteract His mercies : 

"We esteem it a peculiar blessing granted to us, that we 



^ Professor E. R. Turner, in his volume on The Negro in Pennsylvania, 
page 78, makes the mistake of thinking the same people worked on the first 
bill, which was not adopted, and tlie second bill which was Judge Bryan's 
own bill, and so modified their ideas. The facts are that Judge Bryan's origin- 
ally proposed bill was not used on account of the sensitiveness of that assembly, 
and now, in a wholly new assembly. Judge Bryan used his own bill, which 
was adopted. 



196 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

are enabled this day to add one more step to universal civili- 
zation by removing as much as possible the sorrows of 
those who have lived in undeserved bondage, and from 
which by the assumed authority of the Kings of Great 
Britain, no effectual legal relief could be obtained. Weaned 
by a long course of experience from those narrow preju- 
dices and partialities we had imbibed, we find our hearts 
enlarged with kindness and benovolence towards men of 
all conditions and nations, and we conceive ourselves at this 
particular period extraordinarily called upon, by the bless- 
ings which we have received, to manifest the sincerity of 
our profession and to give substantial proof of our grati- 
tude : 

"And whereas the condition of those persons, who have 
heretofore been denominated negro and mulatto slaves, has 
been attended with circumstances which not only deprived 
them of the common blessings that they were by nature 
entitled to, but has cast them into the deepest afflictions by 
an unnatural separation and sale of husband and wife from 
each other, and from their children, an injury the greatness 
of which can only be conceived by supposing that we were 
in the same unhappy case. In justice, therefore, to persons 
so unhappily circumstanced, and who, having no prospect 
before them whereon they may rest their sorrows and their 
hopes, have no reasonable inducement to render that service 
to society which they otherwise might, and also in grateful 
commemoration of our own happy deliverance from that 
state of unconditional submission to which we were doomed 
by the tyranny of Britain : 

"Be it enacted and it is hereby enacted by the Repre- 
sentatives of the Freemen of the Commonwealth of Pennsyl- 
vania in General Assembly met, and by the authority of the 
same, that all persons, as well negroes and mulattoes as 
others who shall be born within this state, from and after 
the passing of this act, shall not be deemed and considered 
as servants for life or slaves ; and that all servitude for life 
or slavery of children in consequence of the slavery of their 
mothers, in the case of all children born within this state 
from and after the passing of this act as aforesaid shall be 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP 197 

and hereby is utterly taken away, extinguished and forever 
abolished."^ 

Several provisions followed : These children were to be 
servants until twenty-eight years of age, like those persons 
bound by indenture ; making them citizens in every respect 
afterwards ; that registry must be made of all negroes and 
others held as slaves by November 1, 1780, and several 
other readjusting negro laws, exempting negroes owned 
outside the state for six months, nullifying all servitude 
agreements of over seven years, and repealing conflicting 
laws. The act was passed on March 1, 1780, by a vote of 
34 to 21, the 21 being distributed throughout all the counties, 
the only one voting wholly against it being Westmoreland. - 
Judge Bryan's own city went solidly for it, although the 
county did not. Those who voted for it are as follows : 

1. Philadelphia city: 1. George Bryan; 2. William Hol- 
lingshead ; 3. Jacob Shreiner ; 4. Michael Shubart ; 5. 
Qiarles Wilson Peale. II. Philadelphia county : 1. Robert 
Knox ; 2. Joseph McClean ; 3. Edward Heaton ; 4. Wil- 
liam Coates. III. Bucks county: 1. Gerardus Wynkoop; 

2. Benjamin Fell; 3. William Scott; 4. Joseph Savage. 
IV. Chester county : 1. David Thomas ; 2. Henry Hayes; 

3. John Fulton. V. Lancaster: 1. John Smiley; 2. John 
Gilchriest ; 3. William Brown, Sr. VI. York: 1. David 
Dunwoody; 2. Matthew Dill; 3. John Orr. VII. Cum- 
berland county: 1. Jonathan Hoge ; 2. Abraham Smith; 
3. John Harris ; 4. Frederick Watts ; 5. Ephraim Steele. 
VIII. Berks: 1. Jonathan Jones [this county also went 
against it]. IX. Northampton: 1. Peter Rhoads ; 2. John 
Ralston. [This county gave a majority against it also.] X. 
Bedford: 1. John Bond; 2. Joseph Powell. XL North- 
umberland: 1. Samuel Dale; 2. William Montgomery.^ 

At the opening of the revolution there were about 6000 



''■ X Statutes at large of Pennsylvania, 67. Also Pa. Packet of Dec. 23, 1779. 

^ Two more, absent ones, joined, making 24 dissentients, who entered 
their reasons in the journal, their idea being that it was dangerous to do 
this in time of war, that it might effect the institution disastrously in other 
states, and that the bill should not have done more than give them freedom, 
not equality and franchise, the same status as everybody else. The vote of 
Feb. 15, 1780, on it was 40 to 18, so that the variation was probably due to 
absences. It was essentially the same in each vote. 

' The law waa reported as sealed on March 25, 1780. 



198 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

slaves in Pennsylvania. Ten years after this bill was passed, 
at the first federal census, there were less than 4000; and 
within a decade more these were diminished by more than 
half ; and by still another decade there were only a few 
hundred scattered throughout the state, and these were the 
aged ones that only death was expected to free — and finally 
did. This was the way the author of abolition of slavery in 
Pennsylvania, Judge Bryan, expected it to work out, but he 
had more than one occasion to defend the law and show 
faith in its wisdom, even against more extreme abolitionists 
themselves. In 1808, the first absolute freedom under this 
act became effective, therefore, and, by a curious coinci- 
dence, it was the same year in which, by a national com- 
promise, the subject of abolition could be acted upon by the 
union. "Our bill," wrote Judge Bryan to Samuel Adams, 
"astonishes and pleases the Quakers. They looked for no 
such benevolent issue of our new government, exercised by 
Presbyterians."^ Pennsylvania, through Judge Bryan, thus 
"led the way," says Bancroft, "to freedom for all." So it 
was that George Bryan became the father of legal emanci- 
pation in America, under the influence of our great revolu- 
tion for national independence ; and his name deserves to 
stand beside that of the great finisher of emancipation of 
that race, Abraham Lincoln.^ 

Judge Bryan was this only in future possibility and 
faith on the day he was made chairman of the committee 
to bring in the bill, a point to which this narrative must now 
return, namely, Wednesday, November 3, 1779. This was 
the fourth committee appointed, the chairmanships of three 
of which were held by Judge Bryan. The fifth committee, 
that on militia legislation, was headed by Judge Bryan's 
chief lieutenant, the artist and head of the Constitutional 
Society, Charles Wilson Peale. The sixth was on the great 
reconstruction bill, in some respects the most important 
committee of them all, that to vest the Proprietary estates in 

1 History of the U. S. by Bancroft. Vol. V, p. 413. 

2 Massachusetts had much the same difficulty with this subject in tr>'ing to 
get it through the "free and equal" clause, as did Vermont. Her constitution 
was ratified in June, 1780, about three months after the Pennsylvania act 
was passed; but it was 1783, through a decision of the Supreme Court of that 
state, before it was legally decided. 



¥ M I L A D E L P H 1 A: 

A.i 'i. CT h: t!it gr'iduai aliclition of Slaver/. 

V \7 ^^ ^■' ^ *'' ^■'••nff^^r''^^* oiir abhorrence of tiiaf 

"- y co^'iition to isriV.K ihe arin»and tyranny of Greaf- 

i^rity-'S Atrc t'X'3r;ed to reJace'us j when v»r look >aclt 

r.) '.'if^ variety o: cl.i];^ers t« Wuio'i i^f. hnve besii expof^d, 

••• -d h»rj OMrtiC'Avvily i<ur waiuts in ir;ir.>' inftancea i,<jv« 

i^-.-eii I'up/ ird; iH { our(i«?livei-a,jc^e wroujjr.t j wlicn cvra 

jio.-J" t;i I (uauR fortifU'ie ii<ve b«Cc,'Tj<» unequ :1 to ti>9 

f-):->rj:fl • wK 2r'. unav'o;(iali!y !pd to k feriuui and r,nte- 

j-.'i (t^nifrfl;- the nnnit'ol;! blcfiiOjj* wMch we i)ave unJe 

i'ii'-jfJly t\'<'-]v<i I'roin thf. han.i of tna: hriiig fruni whom 

e^e.-y ro)-' and perfcfrt ^ji^tco.Ticfa. Iraprcu-c! wjtiT r, ?!t 

jdcur; weco::rt;v5 thiit it is ourd^t/, iti-l wr r«joicf fiat 

it !s" ♦): our puvvrr, to exrc4icj' a poitiou of that frctjoro to 

others, w.':ch 'uuh bo«a c«rt.i.;<;J toes, and a rcl.-.'^fe 

;r i.'n t.iat ff-^te r>f r;-,rai:!om, to wnich wt our(five» were 

Ityrartiiiuaily doomed, auj I'r-p.i whirls wc htver.i'W every 

profpcit of i>ei;ig delivered. Ii i$ not (o^ ui ro snqairc, why, 

in tn« creation of m^iaKind, th'' iii!!«;.>;,-..'.iits uf t .e itveral 

pirrs of rhe rarin Wvrf diilinjuilh d b/ a d.if rtnce in 

feature or coiv.pltrxion. If is fufncitiit ti: kaciw t'.at n >«re 

fi*» w rk of an Alr^-n^hty IhamX. VV> ir-vi in tiir diftnbu- 

lio;i of tlii' iir.iai^.1 (pecjre, tiiat the luofi icr'ue as v*ell 

as the '■noft birr..^! piru of tnc e.;r'h are ini.'iljited J)y 

in? > of coiiipj X'-Oiis diit.-re.i: from ai rs, and 'rona fsch 

orh<>r, 'rom whsiicr wt- m ly reaTjiiabiy a» well as rrh^-i- 

ouilv infc-r t.'.'.nr He, vv;i) plA< td fl^eni in tijc-jr vsrio'j* fi- 

tJirioii«, hath exttnied equ .liy His care and prottv^i.ia 

t> ^11, and tiiat it iiecorafvh not U8 to coiiO'frart H « 

niiicie.':. W? ffiftm it a pecBli-;r i>!ct]iiij>, ^vj'^'.tii to uu, 

t:iat 'AT . r": enabled t;d>. diy to ad i Oiie ic«*r« A'-o to unj- 

ve-rUl cv/'Aiz-it'im, by reinoviug ?* inui h ru pofiii-le, tbe 

fo?rcv.vi! ©f fiofe wiio bavr iiv.-d m uu.'.e'f vfd hin-l^ie, 

a '1 'r.)m wtiich, by Mie arfuiTiMi aut ority of thf K n « 

c' ir.r:*,i:n. no <^tfc.llu'd !. -^-i! r^i!e: ciuA be oh;ai-.'.f«i. 

Weqii--d by a loii.- cuuri* of .-xperieac*' fr ;•■,-, t»-.ofe 'A-^r- 

r«iw pre-juiices >nd parti ;iit-rs we hid "'mb be <, \v«- /ir.<d 

ouriie-irt«*n'i-ir.2i; I v-u'i iciiidaeri- md bMicvol- ace towards 

men nf q|i c •.-; ijior;* an«i n'ltfdfis , and *•- r^oceivc o»r- 

fi-lvps Tt t'iii p,rii.rl;ir p-ri i-J eK'.raord'narily la >uupoo 

'•; -lit bJffRiij-s wth.;) we have rece:v?!i, t<s a:ari!.'jft Ilic; 



First publication of The Abolition Act of 1780, after it became a law, 
in The Pennsylvania Packet of March 30, 1780 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP 199 

the commonwealth of Pennsylvania ; and of this also Judge 
Bryan was made chairman ; indeed it had been his measure 
almost as much as the bill for gradual abolition of slavery ; 
and it involved even more skillful legal reconstructive work 
than the former bill. It had of course been under con- 
sideration by Judge Bryan for some time, so that he was 
ready with a prepared bill in six days, introducing it on 
November 9th, and pressing it forward with such dispatch, 
that the second reading occurred the next day, with an order 
for publication, a hearing was had, and in two weeks from 
the time it was introduced, November 24, 1779, a vote on 
engrossing it in order to pass into a law was taken, with the 
overwhelming majority of 40 to 7. The seven, even, ap- 
peared to object only to some of the characteristics of the 
bill, claiming that it had a retrospective power back of July 
4, 1776, that might endanger titles ; also endanger titles for 
sales since then ; seemed to discriminate between the Pro- 
prietaries and other citizens ; and was not fair in appearing 
to pay the Proprietaries from money already their own. It 
was enacted into a law three days later, November 27, 1779, 
against the protest of ex-Governor John Penn that they 
could not deprive the Proprietaries of their property without 
their consent. 

This law is generally known as the Divesting Act and. 
of course, applied only to Pennsylvania, not Delaware es- 
tates. This compensation to the Proprietaries was £130,000, 
sterling, something like three-quarters of a million dollars, 
payable in installments after one year; and as the family 
accepted the money, they thereafter only laid claim to 
private estates, including manors laid out before July 4, 
1779, which were exempted by the act. "But no such act 
of generosity — honesty it might be called," wrote an attorney 
for the Penn family of later date, the late Col. William 
Brooke Rawle, — "as the payment to the Penns of some 
compensation for the loss of their estates in the Three Lower 
Counties upon Delaware can be credited to the State of 
Delaware, as they came to be called, and consequently there 
was no estoppel as to them" — which shows the opinion of 
Judge Bryan's work held by the American representative of 



200 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

the family in our own day. One interesting feature was 
that quit-rents were aboHshed ; and, in the preamble, it was 
stated that the new lands of other states were drawing ofT 
large numbers of the Pennsylvania population because these 
lands were not available on the same terms. It will there- 
fore be seen what a tremendously significant act this was, 
and yet it was no different — except far more generous — 
than the losses of the British government of the whole land, 
the price of war and defeat. The Proprietaries were thus 
wiped ofif the map of the new commonwealth, just as the 
British government itself was ; and, it took on new signifi- 
cance as the last step, in the long series that began with the 
colony, and was added to by David Lloyd and clung to by 
George Bryan and, as he believed, rendered permanent in 
the new form of the old constitution, and ended in absolute 
freedom from all extraneous power. 

This was what Judge Bryan aimed at on that November 
morning, the 3rd, the second day of the new session, when 
he became chairman of this sixth committee — all of them, 
indeed, but one. Following this appointment. Judge Bryan 
was also put at the head of the seventh committee, namely, 
that to confirm and re-charter the College of Philadelphia 
and its subordinate schools at Fourth and Arch Streets. 
Just one week later he brought in a bill for this purpose also ; 
and it, too, was pressed forward with his industrious dis- 
patch, so that papers of the College trustees were ordered 
before the House on the 12th, the second reading occurred 
that afternoon, and was ordered published on the 16th of 
November. They found a tenacious opponent in the Pro- 
vost, Dr. William Smith, who, on the 22nd, asked for a 
hearing by counsel, and on the 23rd presented a paper of 
his own. These were dismissed, after consideration, on the 
25th and a vote taken, resulting in a like party majority, 
39 to 5, one of the five registering his dissent on the ground 
of haste in so important a public matter. It was passed, 
engrossed and signed on November 27, 1779. 

The title of the bill was "An Act to Confirm the Estates 
and Interests of the College, Academy and Charitable 
School of the City of Philadelphia, and to Amend and Alter 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP 201 

the Charters Thereof conformably to the Revohition and to 
the Constitution and Government of this Commonwealth, 
and to Erect the Same Into a University." The preamble 
expresses the danger to the republic of an institution of 
learning in the hands of "disaffected men," and holds that 
the catholic character of the institution was destroyed by 
a by-law of June 14, 1764. They therefore declare the old 
charters void, and then proceed to re-establish the whole on 
a new foundation. First they empowered the state execu- 
tive to set aside confiscated estates for its support, the annual 
income not to exceed £1500, "computing wheat at the rate 
of ten shillings per bushel," the board of trustees and 
faculty were vacated, and the trust was to repose in: 1. 
The President or Chief Executive ; 2. The Vice-President ; 
3. Speaker of the Assembly; 4. The Chief Justice; 5. 
Judge of Admiralty ; 6. Attorney-General ; 7. Senior 
Episcopal minister; 8. senior Presbyterian minister; 9. 
Baptist also; 10. Lutheran; 11. German Calvinistic churches 
also; and 12. Roman church; 13. Dr. Benj. Franklin; 14. 
Congressional delegates Wm. Shippen, Frederick Muhlen- 
berg, and James Searles; 15. Justices Wm. Aug. Atlee and 
John Evans of the Supreme Court; 16. Secretary of the 
Executive Council, T. Matlack; 17. State Treasurer David 
Rittenhouse; 18. Jonathan Bayard Smith; 19. Samuel 
Morris, Sr. ; 20. Judge George Bryan; 21. Dr. Thomas 
Bond ; and 22. Dr. James Hutchinson — and their successors, 
"Trustees of The University of Pennsylvania." The only 
other University office they could accept was that of Treas- 
urer, and Judge Bryan became the first incumbent of that 
office. The Assembly was to have veto power over any 
choice of a trustee in future, and the new oath of office was 
to be that provided by constitution and laws, and all rules 
and arrangements were to be made consistent with the new 
order. The trustees, of whom seven were to be a quorum, 
were to meet on the first Wednesday in the following month, 
December, 1779, for organization. The re-organization was 
to occur within a month of the introduction of the bill. 

The act was published on Tuesday, November 30, 1779, 
and, as the following day was the first Wednesday in De- 



202 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

cember, the new trustees were directed to meet at the Library 
room of the State House, above stairs, at 11 o'clock and go 
from there to the "Hall of the University," heretofore known 
as College Hall, at Fourth and Arch Streets. Eighteen of 
them did so and elected President Reed President of the 
board, which was already assumed, and after a merely pre- 
liminary meeting they adjourned to meet on Friday, at 6 
o'clock at the State House Library room, up stairs, again. 
They decided, however, that the schools of the collegiate de- 
partment should open immediately and proceed as usual. The 
Assembly Library room proved to be a favorite meeting place 
for the board of the new University. Judge Bryan was of 
course there and at the next meeting, on December 3, 1779, 
was elected Treasurer by all votes except his own, and be- 
came one of the committee on reorganization. He was au- 
thorized to receive all of the papers of the late Treasurer of 
the College, George Clymer ; and on the 8th was put on the 
financial committee for faculty funds. The L>niversity had 
in it, besides the Medical School students, 15 boys in the 
higher studies taught by Provost and Vice-Provost, 63 boys 
in the Grammer School, 63 in the English School and 54 
in the Charity School, a total of 195. On December 16th. 
Judge Bryan's pastor, the Rev. Dr. John Ewing was chosen 
Vice-Provost and Professor of "Natural and Experimental 
Philosophy" and Mr. Rittenhouse. Professor of Astronomy, 
the mathematics of higher grade to be divided between them. 
This could have meant but one thing, namely, that some 
l)0ssibility existed of retaining the old Provost, Dr. William 
Smith, but at the next meeting on the 21st Dr. Ewing de- 
clined the \^ice-Provostship. Judge Brj^an, on the 29th, 
was made chairman of a committee to get possession of the 
Provost's house at the comer of Fourth and Arch Streets 
for use as University offices ; and, in his office of Treasurer, 
it was his duty to see that a supply of wood from the con- 
fiscated estates was on hand to keep the young ideas warm. 
Most of these winter meetings were held in the Council 
Chamber. By January 26, 1780, a Rector of the Academy 
was chosen and some other members of the faculty, and a 
surprising amount of favor was shown to German pupils. 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP 203 

On January 31, 1780, they were compelled to get a loan 
from the Assembly of £15,000 for current expenses. Judge 
Bryan being on nearly all the financial committees. At this 
meeting also they made Dr. Ewing Provost and voted to 
call back to the Mastership of the English School, Judge 
Bryan's Convention lieutenant. Professor James Cannon, 
who had gone to Charleston, South Carolina. Professor 
Rittenhouse was made Vice-Provost at the meeting on Feb- 
ruary 8th and Dr. Ewing officially accepted the Provostship 
on the 26th. By April 5th, the incorrigibility of the late 
Provost, Dr. Smith, became so acute that Judge Bryan and 
Mr. Matlack were made attorneys for the University to 
bring him to time. They secured the house and rented it 
to Vice-President Moore. Professor Cannon arrived in 
May. After some delay, it was finally decided that com- 
mencement should occur on the 4th of July, and one of the .. 
features of that day was the honoring of the famous author 
of Co 111 III oil Sense and the Crisis, Thomas Paine, now Clerk 
of the Assembly. It is significant, too, that on this day the 
Trustees called upon Judge Bryan to assist in revising all 
the old rules and regulations of the institution, so highly 
was his ability as a reorganizer looked upon by his asso- 
ciates, for by this time, as shall appear, he had reorganized 
the whole government of the commonwealth. As the insti- 
tution was now reorganized and had its first commence- 
ment, but was to have a most picturesque experience in the 
next decade, during which Judge Bryan was connected with 
it. it may be well to defer further anticipation of the narra- 
tive and return to that day on November 3, 1779, the second 
day of the session of the new Assembly, when he was made 
chairman of a committee to secure these results. 

It will be recalled that this was the seventh committee 
appointed by the new Assembly and that he was chairman 
of six of them, before the second day was done. The eighth 
committee, was on bounty to the militia, not an important 
one, but notable because Judge Bryan was not on it. The 
ninth one, however, that on forming a civil list or fee bill 
of all officers, had him as chairman, and he was also chair- 
man of that to inspect and reform the Pennsylvania Hospital 



204 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

— chairman of eight out of ten committees in the first two 
days of the session. No one had any doubts, by this time, 
who was acknowledged as the not only unquestioned leader 
of the Assembly, but almost the sole leader, to a degree re- 
markable in legislative annals. Two other committees were 
appointed that day, one on rewards for Pennsylvania troops, 
of which his lieutenant, Charles Wilson Peale, was chair- 
man, and one to bring in a bill to suppress vendues, the 
twelfth committee, of nine of which. Judge Bryan held the 
chairmanships — a very large two days' work. 

The 4th of November, 1779, added but one more chair- 
manship to his collection, that on the Sloop Active case and 
the Wyoming Connecticut claims, reported from their Con- 
gressional delegates. Friday, the 5th, did slightly better, 
namely, two chairmanships were added to his list, one on 
the minutes of Assembly and one conference with the Coun- 
cil for election of President and Vice-President — eleven out 
of fourteen chairmanships in four days, and all of the first 
importance. Monday, the 7th, did still better, in creating 
four committees, whose chairmanships were divided be- 
tween Judge Bryan and Mr. Peale, the former receiving 
those on the sale of a state ship. General Greene, and that 
on inspection of accounts, requested by state auditors, be- 
cause the situation was so difficult, Mr. Peale being assigned 
to those on chimney sweepers and a stable for members' 
horses. Here were thirteen out of eighteen committees in 
the first week! This shows the remarkable character of his 
leadership, not only in this Assembly, but in every other 
public work with which he had been connected for nearly 
twenty years. It became natural to speak of him as Mr. 
Bryan or as George Bryan, rather than Judge, for his newer 
activities were so much more striking and public as to sub- 
merge his old title. He was a bigger man than any position 
he might hold, and he certainly was the chief leader of the 
new democracy, while so many of the upper classes had 
become discredited and disqualified for leadership by paci- 
fist or Tory tendencies, or their leadership was transferred 
to diplomatic. Congressional or military spheres. 

By Tuesday, November 9, 1780, the beginning of the 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP 205 

second week of the Assembly, some of these committees 
began to report, some of Mr. Bryan's among them. Two 
new committees were appointed on this day, one of which 
on the petition of a mihtary officer, Mr. Bryan was made 
chairman; the other was on relief for the poor, and assigned 
to Mr. Wynkoop. The 10th, Wednesday, was spent in re- 
ceiving some of Dr. Bryan's committees reports, but of the 
three new committees appointed, one, that on vesting the 
State House, public barracks, court houses, "gaols," work- 
houses, etc., in the commonwealth, was assigned to his chair- 
manship, one of the other two, that on grievances, being 
assigned to Mr. Peale. The next day being devoted to 
Presidential election and attendance on a funeral of a Con- 
gressman. Joseph Hewes of North Carolina, little new busi- 
ness came up ; but on Friday, the 12th, another most im- 
portant part of re-construction came up, namely, the erec- 
tion of a Court of Errors and Appeals, to take the place of 
appeal to the King in Council, and as a court of review, 
since the Supreme Court had original jurisdiction in some 
cases. Mr. Bryan was of course made chairman of this 
committee, with but two other members. This made six- 
teen out of twenty-four committees — two-thirds of all in 
number and nine-tenths in importance ! The mind of the 
modern recurs easily to a well-known and somewhat simi- 
lar case in national and international affairs. No new com- 
mittees appeared on Saturday, the 13th, but on Monday the 
papers from Congress regarding financial affairs and a pro- 
posed inter-state convention of all states north of Virginia, 
inclusive, to take measures for the regulation of rising 
prices called for a new and most important committee to 
report upon it and it had now become a foregone conclusion 
that ]\Ir. Bryan should be chairman of it. 

The third week of the session began on Tuesday, No- 
vember 16, 1779. Once in a while a member would bring 
in a bill independently, but not more than three or four had 
thus far been brought in. This day was given over chiefly 
to discussions of bills brought in by Mr. Bryan's commit- 
tees, and one committee on re-imbursement for individual 
losses caused by Continental troops was appointed, the ninth 



206 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

one of which he was not chairman. The 17th, Wednesday, 
was also largely given over to reports of his committees, 
and their treatment was characterized by as much dispatch 
as that of the committees themselves. The Assembly went 
down stairs also to attend the Congressional reception of 
Chevalier de Luzerne, the new French Minister. On Thurs- 
day, the 18th, consideration of his committees reports again 
occupied most attention, and it was on this day that Mr. 
Bryan's committee proposed to Connecticut the submission 
of the Wyoming question to a Congressional Committee of 
Appeals, as suggested in the proposed articles of Confedera- 
tion, and to be binding on the two states as if the Articles 
were in force. His committee also approved the inter-state 
convention. One new committee was appointed also, 
namely, one to bring in a bill for a United States quota of 
$2,300,000 per month for the year 1780, and, in this case 
also, Mr. Bryan headed a large committee. This was the 
day when a decisive vote was taken on the work of his first 
committee, that on the Abolition act, and the ratification of 
his work on the Virginia boundary. The next day, the 20th, 
his quota bill was reported and another new committee 
chairmanship, that on impeachment of two Northumberland 
county judges, was assigned to him. On Monday, 22nd 
November, 1779, when the Assembly elected delegates to 
the inter-state convention on regulation of prices, Speaker 
Bayard, Mr. Bryan, John Jacobs, John Bull and William 
Henry were chosen. This was a species of committee, of 
which only the official position of Speaker Bayard prevented 
Mr. Bryan from being the head also, and, as in the case of 
the Stamp Act Congress, it may well be taken for granted 
that he was the essential head in activity. If this three 
weeks' work of the session does not record twenty-nine 
committees, of twenty of which he was chairman or, as in 
this case, essentially chairman, it came so near it as to be 
inconsequential. 

With the opening of the fourth week of the Assembly 
on Tuesday, November 23, 1779, still more of Mr. Bryan's 
measures were reported out or considered, among them a 
direction for the Sloop Active prize money to the Pennsyl- 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP 207 

vanians as the Admiralty Court had directed. Of two more 
new committees, one concerning a bridge over the Schuyl- 
kill was assigned to Mr. Bryan's chairmanship, and the 
others to Mr. Smiley, that on the Dr. Morgan-Dr. Shippen 
dispute. The High Court of Errors and Appeals bill was 
reported by Mr. Bryan also. The next day, the 24th, was 
the day of the vote on the Proprietary estates ; and the 25th 
that on College of Philadelphia and the United States finan- 
cial bill, and others. Friday, the 26th, brought out another 
new committee that designed to equalize military burdens 
between those who supported the war voluntarily and paci- 
fists and Tories who did not, and the chairmanship of this 
one went to the big leader. It was a very full day. Satur- 
day, the 27th, the last day of the session, was a red-letter 
day for enactments and order for publication, the former 
including the College bill, the Proprietary estates bill, the 
equal burden bill, and some lesser ones. Four new commit- 
tees were formed, the chairmanship of three of them being 
assigned to the Philadelphia leader, Mr. Bryan; these were 
one on delinquent accounts, repair of the Assembly room, 
and the erection of a land office, a natural outgrowth of the 
estates act, the fourth being merely to see the seal put upon 
the nine acts passed at this session, of less than four weeks. 
Mr. Bryan also reported the Northumberland impeachment 
articles. 

The adjournment of this first session on November 27, 
1779, was to January 19, 1780, three weeks later, after the 
holidays. Such a session of a legislature was probably 
never duplicated, before or since, in the matter of domi- 
nance of one man. The chairmanships of twenty-five out 
of the whole thirty-six committees of the session, with 
membership in a twenty-sixth in which it would be difficult 
to think of him as subordinate, is the remarkable proposi- 
tion of over two-thirds of the chairmanships of the Assem- 
bly of Pennsylvania, in numbers, and, as has been said, 
nine-tenths in importance. As all power was practically 
concentrated in this body, and he was its almost sole leader 
by overwhelming majority of the people, Mr. Bryan's well- 
known modesty only need have prevented him from saying 
with the great French King: "L'etat, c'est nioi!" 



CHAPTER XV 

Leader and Organizer of the Legislation 
OF the Assembly 

II 

1780 

The second session of the Assembly of 1779-1780 did 
not begin in the eastern up-stairs room at the State House 
on Wednesday, because of a lack of quorum, and indeed 
were unable to secure one until the following Monday, 
January 24, 1780. And the first action after credentials 
of new members was the appointment by speaker Bayard 
of the thirty-seventh committee of this Assembly, composed 
of Judge Bryan and Mr. Peale — the twenty-sixth one for 
the former to head, to confer with the Executive Council 
in the west upper room across the hall.^ 

On Tuesday the 25th, the inter-state convention com- 
mittee reported that they had met on January 5th in 
Philadelphia and adjourned from time to time until the 21st, 
in hopes that the delegations from Massachusetts, Rhode 
Island, New York and Virginia would arrive, but as they did 
not, it was deemed of no use to proceed. After this report, 
which was signed by Speaker Bayard, Mr. Bryan and the 
two others, amongst other business, three more committees 
were appointed, making forty, of which two were assigned to 
Mr. Bryan as chairman, one being to bring in a bill estab- 
lishing Admiralty jurisdiction of Pennsylvania, and the 
other a bill for the recovery of fines and forfeitures due 
the commonwealth, the third being one to consider the 
accounts report for 1779. 

On the 26th, a committee of the whole, with Mr. Bryan 



^ It is well to recall that at this tilme the east upper room was then of the 
same dimensions as the Congressional Hall below it. 

208 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP CONTINUED 209 

as chairman, considered the mihtia bill, in both forenoon 
and afternoon sessions. The forty-second committee, a 
general reference one, was the thirteenth one only that 
Mr. Bryan was not the head of, Mr. Hollingshead, one 
of his fellows from Philadelphia, being appointed. The 
reference committee reported the next day causing the as- 
signment of its various subjects to other new committees, 
two out of three of which, had Mr. Bryan as chairman and 
the third had Mr. Peale : these were a conference committee 
to meet both the State Executive Council and the Congress ; 
one to provide a bill confirming to Frenchmen the same 
privileges in this state that the French Treaty gave to Ameri- 
cans in France ; and the third, Mr. Peale's, was consideration 
of some disputes that had arisen in the final location of 
the Virginia boundary. This gave Mr. Bryan thirty-one 
out of the whole forty-five committees. 

On Friday, the 28th of January, 1780, the committee 
of the whole was presided over by Mr. Peale; and on Satur- 
day, when it was found that delegates from Massachusetts 
and Rhode Island had at last appeared for the inter-state 
convention, Vice-President Moore was put in Mr. Bryan's 
place on a new committee. The Sloop Active case now 
again required a Pennsylvania-Congressional conference 
and Mr. Bryan was made chairman of a committee to 
formulate instructions to the states delegates for the confer- 
ence. These were brought in on Monday, the 31st of Jan- 
uary, 1780, and considered in committee of the whole of 
which also Mr. Bryan was chairman. It was a serious crisis 
in the Active case, for Congress proposed to pay Olmsted 
and his companions and charge the same to Pennsylvania — 
a mode of coercion. As this was the most critical point 
in the legal phase of this great case, and as Judge Bryan 
wrote these instructions, which have never received proper 
consideration in any account of the case, it may be well 
to let Judge Bryan state his own case, as they stand in 
the words of these instructions then reported : 
"Gentlemen — 

"The house being informed that it has been proposed in 
the honorable Congress, that an order be drawn on the 



210 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

treasury of the United States, for the amount of three- 
fourths of the neat^ proceeds of the Sloop Active and her 
cargo and to pay the same to Gideon Ohnsted and others, 
appellants in that case, in order to satisfy the decree of the 
Court of Appeals for prizes made at sea, and that the same 
be charged to the State of Pennsylvania, referring said 
state for indemnification to the three-fourths in the hands 
of the Judge of Admiralty of Pennsylvania. 

"The house in consequence of the above, have taken the 
premises into their most serious consideration, and adopted 
the instructions given by the last house of Assembly, to 
a committee of the said house, who had been appointed to 
confer with a committee of Congress in the case of the 
Sloop Active, which instructions are in the following words: 

"Resolved 1st, That 'The power of establishing courts 
for receiving, and determining finally appeals in all cases 
of captures; is reserved in Congress, by the articles of 
Confederation; and as the State of Pennsylvania has ac- 
ceded to these Articles, this house esteem it their duty to 
adopt such regulations, consistent zvith the principles of 
the Confederation, as Congress may judge necessary for 
the due exercise of the said pozver. 

"Resolved 2nd, That our act of this coninwmvealth, for 
establishing a court of Admiralty, it is declared and en- 
acted, that the finding of the jury shall establish the facts 
unthout re-examination or appeal, and that the act is not 
repugnant to, but consistent zvith the resolutions of Con- 
gress of the 25th of Noz'ember, 1775. 

"Resolved 3rd, That the proceedings in the court of 
Admiralty, in the case of the Sloop Active, zvere founded 
upon the aforesaid act of Assembly, zvhich, together zvith 
the said resolve, form the true ground zvhereupon the de- 
cision of the contested point should be made, znnthout involv- 
ing a consideration of the necessity or propriety of future 
alterations. - 

"The house likewise instruct you immediately to inform 
the honorable body, of which you are members, that this 

' Old style for "net." Olmsted is spelled "Umstead." 

" These three Italicized resolves only were not written by Mr. Bryan. 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP CONTINUED 211 

house will consider any application of the money of this 
state by Congress, to the purpose aforesaid, as an high 
infringement on the honor and rights of the commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania, and in this view will complain in an es- 
pecial manner, of those delegations which shall concur in 
any vote for that purpose, to the several legislative bodies 
from whom they respectively derive their powers. 

"And you are further instructed, to enter a protest in 
behalf of this state, that we will pay no part of the sum 
which Congress shall award out of the treasury of the 
United States, in consequence of the decree of the Court 
of Appeals. 

"We also instruct you to inform Congress, that the mani- 
fest right of the citizens of this state to the benefit of 
its laws, has sometime since obtained, from the author- 
ity thereof, an order for the distribution of the three-fourths, 
given by the verdict of the jury in this case, to the captains 
and crews of the brigantine Convention, and her consort. 

"The house views with astonishment the perseverance 
and decision of Congrsss, in rolling upon this state an 
embarrassment created by the Court of Appeals. 

"Congress recommended a trial by jury to be intro- 
duced into the court of Admiralty: The Assembly of 
Pennsylvania adopted the measure. A jury in the case of 
the sloop Active founded their verdict upon the facts. It 
is the proper business and the strict right of juries to es- 
tablish facts: yet the Court of Appeals took upon them to 
violate this essential part of jury trial, and, to reduce in 
effect, this mode of jurisprudence to the course of the civil 
law, a proceeding to which the state of Pennsylvania can- 
not yield. 

"If the mode of trial by jury (in cases of capture), as 
recommended by Congress, is found inconvenient to the 
circumstances of the United States, as being a mode un- 
known to most of the civilized states in Europe, this house 
is desirous of conforming to the customary practice. 

"The house finally remind you of the laws which they 
understand here have been passed in some of the states of 
the union, denying all appeal in law, as well as fact, to 



212 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

the Court of Appeals established by Congress for prize 
causes, except the claimants be foreigners or captors in the 
pay of Congress ; — by the operation of one of which laws, 
Mr. Hugh McCulloch, a citizen of Pennsylvania, was dis- 
barred from removing the case of a ship and cargo, con- 
demned in New England, into the said Court of Appeals, 
and that little notice appears to have been taken of these 
laws, whilst Pennsylvania, conforming to the recommenda- 
tions of Congress, concerning Admiralty jurisdiction, in the 
most legal and usual construction of the expression, has 
not, in our opinion, been treated by that honorable body 
with sufficient respect and attention."^ 

It will therefore be seen, from this statement, that Mr. 
Bryan's attitude was thoroughly legal and fair so far as the 
law then stood, and that he was perfectly willing to change 
the law again, if Congress so desired — but, with him, this 
particular case was closed by judicial process, on lines laid 
down by Congress itself, even before the Declaration of 
Independence. 

Tuesday, February 1, 1780, produced three new com- 
mittees, of one of which, that on equalizing fines and 
penalties with fee standards, the other two being on amend- 
ing the profiteer act and the other on supply for the army of 
the United States, Mr. Shubart having the chairmanship of 
the last one. Wednesday, the 2nd, produced one on the 
Morgan-Shippen controversy that was not assigned to him. 
Three more were appointed on February 3, 1780, two chair- 
manships being assigned to Mr. Bryan, one being on meas- 
ures of aiding the Pennsylvania Hospital and the second 
was to complete purchase or titles to real estate on which 
State buildings were located. The dispatch with which Mr. 
Bryan acted is indicated by the fact that the fine and penal- 
ties equalization committee of Tuesday, the 1st, was reported 
out on the 4th, when one more committee only was 
created. The 7th and 8th produced only two committees 



^ Journals of Assembly, Vol. I, p. 413-414. Only that part headed with 
the words "Resolved" was written by the previous Assembly, whose committee 
chairman, Lawyer Edward Biddle of Reading (p. 332), asked instructions of the 
house, and someone, unknown, wrote this part, and it was apparently voted 
without serious opposition. 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP CONTINUED 213 

of the whole, of which John Harris was chairman, and the 
9th produced but one, a committee on Council conference 
of which Mr. Bryan was chairman, while the 10th fur- 
nished one on Congressional delegates' pay, of which Mr. 
Peale was chairman. Two committees of the whole with 
Mr. Harris as chairman were the sole committee output on 
the 11th, and also of the 12th, with one more committee, 
that on orphans, widows and annuitants, of which Mr. Bryan 
was made chairman. This made thirty-seven out of sixty- 
five committees of all kinds, whose chairmanships were held 
by the Philadelphia organizer of the Assembly. 

On St. Valentine's Day of 1780, the Assembly received 
a report from the Inter-State Convention held on the 7th, 
the previous week, at the State House, which agreed upon a 
plan of price reduction and took measures to submit them 
to Virginia and New York for acceptance, because their 
representatives were not present ; and provided for a second 
session at the same place on April 4th, next. Two more 
committees were appointed that day also, of one of which 
he was a member — the second one only of which he was a 
member but not chairman, this being one to amend an act 
on vendues. The second committee's chairman was Mr. 
Wynkoop, and they were to confer with their Congressional 
delegates, but were only to receive information. St. Valen- 
tine's was a busy day, for in addition to other things, the 
instructions to their Congressmen were adopted, and they 
bore upon the very important subjects of holding all states 
to responsibility for their quota in money and men by effec- 
tive measures ; the reduction of continental currency to some 
fixed standard ; the suggestion that the states might borrow 
of individuals and so draw out supplies, now withheld be- 
cause of uncertainty of payment, and an equality among the 
states as to granting unappropriated lands. 

The next two days, the 15th and 16th of February, 1780, 
are notable, the first as the day the fate of Mr. Bryan's 
abolition act was determined by an engrossment vote of 40 
to 18. Besides this four more committees were appointed, 
the chairmanship of two of them going to Mr. Bryan, the 
one on excise and licenses and the second on salaries 



214 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

of the civil list, while the two others were on the militia 
service and prevention of horse stealing.^ Mr. Bryan's bill 
for creation of the new High Court of Errors and Appeals 
was finished and ordered engrossed on the 17th, as the cap- 
stone of the judiciary system of the state, thus making its 
author the father of another great institution of the state. 
Congressional and French communications were received on 
the 18th and assigned to chairman Bryan and his new com- 
mittee and an expired law to him as head of another. The 
19th of February was productive of no new committees, but 
one more was created on the 21st, one on a perplexing case 
of guardian and children, of which body the author of the 
High Court of Errors and Appeals became chairman also. 
It was a poor day that failed to give him a new committee, 
but Washington's birthday did not produce one either for 
him or anyone else, as did the day following, also, on which 
several of his bills were put forward. The 24th gave the 
rare phenomenon of Mr. Bryan appearing in a minority; but 
it must be said he was in good company, as most of the 
other chairman of committees were with him, namely, in 
insisting that members of Assembly be not exempted from 
militia duty. But one new committee was created on Friday, 
the 25th of February, and its chairmanship was given to Mr. 
Peale, while none was created on Saturday. 

Monday, February 28, 1780, was the day several of Mr. 
Bryan's and other bills, among them the High Court bill, 
were enacted, and the matter of the books of the late 
Receiver-General of the Pennsylvania Land Office was as- 
signed to a new committee with Mr. Bryan as chairman. 
The day was especially notable because of chairman Bryan's 
presentation of the report on the civil list. This provided 
£2000 for the President, £600 for the Vice-President, £1200 
for the Chief Justice and £600 for the other Justices. This 
was £500 more than the original grant for President, £100 
more for Vice-President, £200 more for the Chief Justice 
and £100 more for the Justices, so this was moderately in 
keeping with the great change in prices and depreciation of 

^ Among the Bryan Papers at the Historical Society is a coniidential letter 
of President Reed's containing his suggestions on this subject. 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP CONTINUED 215 

the currency. President Reed, in his letter, had suggested 
£2500 as proper for his office, so that his former colleague 
compromised on £2000. 

One committee, not assigned to Mr. Bryan was created on 
February 29th, to consider petitions, and one of the same 
sort on March 1st, when, among several of his bills enacted, 
was the Abolition act, this with a vote of 34 to 21, as has 
been already pointed out. On March 2nd, a ways and means 
committee on army supply was appointed with Mr. Bryan 
heading it — his forty-fifth committee, out of seventy-nine. 
This w^as the second day to be distinguished by Mr. Bryan's 
vote with a minority, and as before in association with most 
of his fellow chairman, namely, because he wanted a severe 
militia fine for neglect of duty on tour and a tax for neglect 
to appear. Furthermore they gave their reasons that they 
wanted to destroy the practice of sending substitutes. An 
effort to patch it up and still leave a substitute in the law 
caused Mr. Bryan to leave his fellows and swing over to the 
majority, as he wanted to clear out the substitute system. 
The bill was re-committed to a new body, with W. Harris 
as chairman. Three committees and one board of trustees 
were formed on Saturday and Monday, the 4th and 6th, 
Mr. Bryan heading the one on abuses in taking up land on 
old rights, and being one of the Province Island board of 
which Speaker Bayard was head. The 7th was a busy day 
but produced no new committees, but the 8th was notable as 
being the occasion of passing the new Admiralty court re- 
vision bill that removed difficulties for the future, like the 
Active case. The 9th, Thursday, however, after being given 
over largely to the subject matter of Mr. Bryan's ways 
and means measures, with Mr. Wynkoop as chairman 
of the committee of the whole, produced two new com- 
mittees of both of which Mr. Bryan was head, namely one on 
Congressional conference and one to prepare a bill on it. 

The American Philosophical Society, of which Mr. 
Bryan was a member was incorporated on March 10, 1780, 
and one comparatively unimportant committee formed ; and 
later in the day, on one question, Mr. Bryan received the 
smallest majority for his side yet given, 26 to 23. It was 



216 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

on a pardon and indemnity law. The 11th passed with no 
new committees, but on the 13th Mr. Bryan headed the one 
on repeal on monopolizing and forestalling laws. For the 
first time, on March 14th, Mr. Bryan seems to have been 
absent at least part of the day; and on the 15th Mr. Peale 
was made head of a new committee to bring in a bill 
suspending habeas corpus, and Mr. Bryan head of one 
to amend the house of employment in the city. Mr. Bryan 
headed a committee on the 16th to transfer some mortgages 
of the loan office and on the 17th, two committees of the 
whole were had with Mr. Wynkoop as chairman, and one 
committee of inquiry at the treasury was appointed on the 
18th. The 20th produced no new committees, but a Con- 
gressional financial message was referred to Mr. Bryan's 
ways and means committee on the 21st. On the latter 
day the Pennsylvania leader had another small majority on 
his desire to have commissioners of purchase under 
the army supply bill appointed by the Supreme Execu- 
tive Council, 30 to 23 ; and, for the first time, had a 
tie vote on wanting to suspend the legal tender laws so 
far as continental currency was concerned, 27 to 27, but 
speaker Bayard joined Mr. Bryan's side, and a committee to 
bring in an additional clause to the money bill was assigned 
to Mr. Bryan's chairmanship. His civil list schedule of sal- 
aries was also voted, while some diflferences in the matter 
of the Connecticut claims and Virginia boundary were also 
assigned to a Bryan committee. 

The 22nd of March, 1780, was a busy day in pushing 
forward legislation, but the day following was one of those 
rare days in which Mr. Bryan was in a minority. This was 
on his report nulifying continental currency as a legal tender, 
and his reasons were that they, or most of them, had depre- 
ciated to one-sixtieth their face value and it was an outrage 
to pay a debt with them, and that no honest man would, 
so that this could only strike the dishonest ones. He lost, 
however, 30 to 24. A committee on the condition of As- 
semblymen's, Congressmen's and the Council's salary pay- 
ments was assigned to Mr. Harris' leadership. The house 
also considered adjournment from the 25th of March to the 



ASSEMBLY LEADERSHIP CONTINUED 217 

10th of May, and of course, under those circumstances, but 
one more new committee was appointed and that on the last 
day, leaving Mr. Bryan with forty-eight out of ninety-three 
committees in the two sessions. And, as has been said, this 
included all of every kind — even committees of the whole — , 
but that in importance of subject, he easily had ninety per 
cent, of all of them. It is not strange then that after the 
thirty-two laws of the sessions were ready to be reported 
as sealed, the Assembly should recognize the tremendous 
extra work of their remarkable leader by voting him an 
extra £500 for his "extra service," before they adjourned — 
and it was done spontaneously and without a trace of 
opposition. 

All the great laws of this session were the work of Mr. 
Bryan ; and, as in the case of his great predecessor of the 
time of Penn, David Lloyd, he proved himself a master in 
drawing legal papers. This was the nature of his leadership: 
he was not only their political leader and a member of the 
Assembly but he was their attorney to draw their laws. He 
was to this Presbyterian-led General Assembly what David 
Lloyd had been to the Quaker Assemblies of the first half- 
century of Pennsylvania. Like him also after 1701, he was 
the organizer or reorganizer of the laws to make them ex- 
press the purposes of the re-modeled old constitution. That 
was the nature of this Assembly ; it was one to reorganize 
the whole structure of government to adapt it to the new 
order. And as Lloyd was chosen to lead because he, more 
than anyone else, was responsible for the new constitution 
of 1701 under which it met ; so Bryan was chosen to lead this 
one because he, more than any other man, was responsible 
for the retention of that old constitution, revised to meet the 
new conditions of the republic, so far as they were yet 
fixed conditions. 

The forty-one laws of this Assembly of 1779-1780 were 
the laws this body was elected to bring to pass, and these 
two sessions were the bulk of their term. The early and 
late summer sessions were usually short ones and of com- 
paratively slight importance. The Assembly of 1779-1780 
had now done its chief work. The constitution was now 



218 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

established at least for its first seven years, and so firmly es- 
tablished that it would take something stronger than the 
state, in all probability, to change it. For, as it was looked 
upon as merely the adapted old constitution which had stood 
for seventy-five years, up to 1776; it was now looked upon 
as having stood for nearly eighty years, and would now 
remain permanent. And because George Bryan had secured 
this result — had withstood the fierce assaults upon it from 
not only the hand of Franklin, but now, from the hand of 
the greatest lawyer on the American continent, James Wil- 
son, it is no wonder that at the close of the Assembly of 
1779-1780, of which he was their unparalleled leader, his 
prestige should be the greatest of any man in the state 
Sfovernment. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Justice of the Supreme Court and High Court of 
Errors and Appeals of Pennsylvania 

1780 

Looking backward over the adult career of Mr. Bryan, 
one feature stands out with great distinctness : Of the 
twenty-eight years since he arrived from Dublin, fifteen 
years, over half of them, had been increasingly spent in 
devotion to the law, as lawyer, somewhat, but chiefly as 
judge; and that, too, with a peculiar devotion to the insti- 
tutions of the country, political, judicial and otherwise. He 
had seen the almost essential independence of Pennsylvania, 
with her single-chamber Assembly in almost full power, 
because of the power of the purse, with laws of her own 
making. And his devotion and admiration had been 
fused to a white heat in the interpretation and applica- 
tion of these laws, as judge, and in the defense of them for 
long years against plausible attacks from within and men- 
acing ones from without. Then came his Herculean self- 
imposed task of holding to the old constitution through revo- 
lution and attacks from a new quarter, which, to him seemed 
like the old Proprietary efforts to have, what he considered, 
an undemocratic upper chamber, namely, the theories voiced 
by James Wilson and his followers, whom Judge Bryan con- 
sidered seriously tinctured with Proprietary and British or, 
at least, aristocratic political and social philosophy. But he 
had not only won the preservation of the old constitution, 
adjusted to the new real independence, in Pennsylvania, but 
had seen the chief ideas of it practically win out, in the new 
government of the union, with its single Congressional 
chamber. Thereupon also he was called from the bench, 
his last service in the Orphans' Court, at least, being as 

219 



220 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Presiding Judge on May 28, 1776, just as the Constitutional 
Convention was about to be called, — as chief organizer and 
counsel in the new executive part of government, and had 
complete control of the legal features of it for most of 
his term. Even President Reed deferred to him, and he 
was himself one of the first lawyers of the commonwealth. 
It was his efforts, while executive, to remould the laws 
through his party in the Assembly, that led to his resigna- 
tion and election to that body so that he could re-make the 
government in keeping with the adjusted constitution, as a 
constructive lawyer and jurist only could. Then came a 
period of less than six months in which, as law-maker, he 
was easily chief and master, drawing practically all the laws 
and securing their enactment — laws which cut out the Royal 
and Proprietary roots from the state and institutions, freed 
a race of slaves, created new organs of justice, like the re- 
modeled Admiralty Court, and provided a substitute for 
review by the King in Council, in the High Court of Errors 
and Appeals. All that was now needed, to establish the 
work of his hands, was for him to go into these highest 
tribunals of interpretation and application of the constitu- 
tion and laws, which he had been so powerful in creating, 
and remain there, working to that end for the rest of his 
life. 

This was precisely what Judge Bryan wished and what 
his party, the Assembly and the Supreme Executve Council 
also desired, in order to have his counsel in the organiza- 
tion of the new highest court, and the reorganization of the 
Supreme Court to effect necessary readjustments with the 
High Court of Errors and Appeals, which was the new organ 
of review. It is not probable that Judge Bryan looked upon 
the High Court as a necessity, for any other reason than 
because professional legal learning was altogether uncom- 
mon in the lower courts ; and even the Supreme Court had 
had many members not trained in the law. It is doubtful, 
if, had the various benches been filled with trained jurists, 
he would have created a court of review on the sole basis 
of danger in leaving a final decision to our tribunal ; and 
this would be more or less natural to an idealist, like him- 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 221 

self, who, not being regularly trained in the atmosphere of 
the Temple or Inns of Court, might not be so permeated 
with the traditions and predilections of the profession. 
Certainly, if he, as he did, believed a single-chamber Assem- 
bly was wholly safe for law-making, he would in all prob- 
ability also be convinced that a single court, other things 
being equal, should be an equally safe interpreter in applying 
them to the liberties of the people. 

This may appear more clearly, if, the character of the 
High Court of Errors and Appeals be considered. It was 
definitely stated it was to take the place of appeal to King 
in Council both for the Admiralty and other courts, and 
especially with regard to error at the common law. 
And yet it practically amounted to making the Supreme 
Court itself a court of review, except in its own cases 
of first instance, and letting the Chief Executive and 
Judge of Admiralty, with "three persons of known integrity 
and ability" act in these cases. For this tribunal was to 
consist only of these latter and the three Supreme Court 
Justices, or, as the Supreme Executive Council now con- 
sidered a fourth Justice necessary, four Justices, only one 
less than half of a full High Court bench, provided the 
"three persons" were promptly added. It was to meet 
twice a year in Philadelphia at an April 6th and Septem- 
ber 20th term, and the April term was now imminent, as 
the Assembly adjourned on March 25th. 

President Reed and the rest of the Supreme Executive 
Council, therefore, on April 3, 1780, "taking into considera- 
tion the state of the Supreme Court, and being of opinion 
the interest of the state required another judge, proceeded 
to choice, when the Honorable George Bryan, Esquire, was 
unanimously appointed to that office." This was on Mon- 
day and on Wednesday, the 5th, Judge Bryan appeared in 
the upper west room Council chamber, where he had been 
head of the state, and took, at the hands of Vice-President 
Moore, the oaths required by law to qualify him as "a Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania," which, 
automatically, made him a Judge of the High Court of 
Errors and Appeals, which was due to meet the next day. 



222 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

This automatically closed his membership in the Assembly 
also. 

Justice Bryan's title was now both "Justice" and "Judge," 
the former in the Supreme Court and the latter in the 
High Court of Errors and Appeals. Curiously enough that 
was true, too, during his years on the bench of Philadel- 
phia County, for while he was a Justice of the Peace, he 
was, as such, a judge of the various county courts. Common 
Pleas and Orphans'. So during the period from 1764 to 
1776 he was known as both Justice Bryan and Judge Bryan. 
He was, however, so strong an individuality and so high 
a personal character that he was more frequently called 
Mr. Bryan or George Bryan, than by either of his judicial 
titles. It was only while he was chief and vice-chief execu- 
tive of the state that he was almost invariably called by 
the title of his office ; for these new offies took on the 
prestige of the Proprietary and their Governor, and that of 
such Royalty as the latter two properly held. When he was 
in the Assembly, however, at the height of his power, he was 
almost as invariably referred to as Mr. Bryan. This was 
in keeping with the nature of the case, for George Bryan, 
the defender of the old constitution, the political leader, the 
father of the constitution of the commonwealth, the law- 
maker, the first emancipator of slaves in a commonwealth, 
representative of the first continental Congress, leader of 
resistance to the Congress in the Admiralty case, re-organ- 
izer of the commonwealth, father of the High Court of 
Errors and Appeals and creator of the University of Penn- 
sylvania, was a much larger man than a mere Justice or 
Judge, even of the Supreme and High Courts of Errors 
and Appeals. His name was larger than any title he had. 
As he was now to be on these high tribunals of his 
own creation in association with other jurists, it will be 
well to become acquainted with them as his companions. 
It may be well to recall also that every one of them was of 
his own choice and he had probably the decisive share in 
their appointment. That has already been seen in the case 
of the titular head of the High Court of Errors and Appeals 
that was to meet the next day. President Joseph Reed. 




i> 






S K 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 223 

A native of Trenton, New Jersey, he was born in 1741, 
and so was ten years younger than Judge Bryan, who was 
now nearly fifty years old. A graduate of Princeton Col- 
lege when he was sixteen, he studied law under a preceptor 
and was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-two, after 
which he spent two years in the Middle Temple in London, 
returning to Trenton about the time of the Stamp Act 
Congress to begin practice there while Judge Bryan was 
a member of that Congress. It was in October, 1770, that 
he cast his lot in Philadelphia when Judge Bryan presided 
over courts in which he appeared. His talent and advan- 
tages made him confidential correspondent of Lord Dart- 
mouth, the Colonial Secretary, and in 1774 became one of 
the city's Committee of Correspondence, while in 1775 he 
was President of the Second Provincial Conference. He 
became a Lieutenant-Colonel and military secretary to Gen- 
eral Washington and in October, 1775, he returned to 
Philadelphia, where at the beginning of the following year 
was chosen to the Assembly, as has been seen, but declined 
as he was Adjutant-General of the Continental Army in 
the campaign about New York. Admiral Howe it was who 
brought him a letter to "George Washington, Esq.," which 
he declined to receive. General Washington secured his 
appointment as Brigadier-General in 1777 and ofi^ered him 
the command of the whole cavalry. He was also offered 
the state Chief-Justiceship but declined both, and remained 
with General Washington through all the campaigns about 
Philadelphia before and after its fall. He was chosen a 
member of the Continental Congress in September, 1777, but 
kept on with his military duties until December. As has 
been seen the city elected him to the Assembly in October, 
1778, and the county chose him for the Executive Council, 
which latter he agreed to accept a little later, as he did 
do, and in December he was chosen to succeed President 
Bryan, with the latter as Vice-President. As President of 
the Supreme Executive Council he was now, ex officio, 
Presiding Judge of the High Court of Errors and Appeals, 
which was to meet in the room below the Executive Council 
room in the west room, or Supreme Court room, with its 



224 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

arched entrances from the corridor, on the following 
day. 

Next in rank in the court, according to mention in the 
act creating it, is Chief Justice Thomas McKean, whose 
court had been engaged chiefly in the treason, confiscation 
and other cases growing out of the war, in consideration of 
which they had been accustomed to meet in this same room, 
with him presiding, and two Associate Justices on either 
side of him. The Chief Justice was also Judge Bryan's 
choice on July 28th, three years before, but a few weeks 
before the fall of Philadelphia. The Chief Justice was 
also of Irish Presbyterian stock, and but three years younger 
than Justice Bryan, born at New London, in Chester county, 
in 1734, and educated under Judge Bryan's old pastor, Rev. 
Francis Allison. Young McKean had studied law in New 
Castle (Delaware) and was made register of probate, and 
admitted to the bar before he was of age. while he also 
became deputy Attorney-General for Sussex County. In 
1757-9 he was a clerk of their Assembly, and in 1762, in 
association with young Caesar Rodney revised the laws of 
the past decade. From that year, for seventeen successive 
years he was a member of Assembly, and was a fellow 
member of the Stamp Act Congress with Judge Bryan in 
1765, and, he it was, who seconded in that body the one- 
colony-one-vote rule, and was one of the drafting committee, 
while his excoriation of President Timothy Ruggles for 
refusal to sign caused a challenge to a duel. He was Judge 
of Common Pleas there from July, 1765, and was the first 
judge to rule against stamped paper. Collector of the Port 
in 1771, Speaker of the Assembly in 1772, in 1774 he was 
chosen to the Continental Congress again and was the only 
member who served continuously until peace was declared 
in 1783, and so lived in Philadelphia much of the time. 
He was one of those who voted for the Declaration in 
July, 1776, and. by his efforts to get Caesar Rodney there 
to vote with him, aided in making the vote final. He then 
headed a battalion in the Flying Camp to aid General Wash- 
ington and so was not present to sign the engrossed copy. 
On his return he was asked by a Dover committee to 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 225 

draft a constitution for Delaware, which he did that night, 
and it was unanimously adopted the next day. Thereupon 
he was made President of Delaware, and was in Congress 
at York, with his family on the banks of the Susquehanna, 
when Vice-President Bryan caused him to also be chosen 
Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, a situation not so strange 
when one recalls that every Colonial Governor of Penn- 
sylvania had also been Governor of Delaware, and that in 
the seventeenth century the two colonies had been united 
for over twenty years. It will thus be seen that Judge 
Bryan had put two very strong associates upon the bench 
of the High Court, which was to meet on the next day 
in the old arched west room of the State House. 

With President Reed and Chief Justice McKean, were 
the two Justices, also Judge Bryan's choice, during the 
summer of 1777 about two weeks after the Chief Justice's 
appointment, that had then completed the organization of 
that court for the first time since the Declaration. These 
were Justice William Augustus Atlee and Justice John 
Evans, the former a Lancasterian and the latter from 
Chester. Justice Atlee was about the same age as the Chief 
Justice — about four years younger than Judge Bryan. He 
came of a distinguished family, his father having been Lord 
Howe's private secretary in 1733, when the latter came over 
as Governor of Barbadoes, and his mother a cousin of 
William Pitt, the family seat being the famous residence 
of the novelist, Henry Fielding, Fordhook House, Acton 
Parish, near London. The father had settled in Philadelphia 
in June, 1734, in Second Street, on his marriage, and his 
son William Augustus, the Justice, was bom on July 1, 1735, 
so that he was forty-five years old at this time. The death 
of the father when his boy was but nine years old, caused 
the family to locate in Lancaster, where William Augustus 
became a clerk in the Recorder's Office, and studied law 
under Judge Shippen, so that he was able to be admitted to 
the bar at the age of twenty-three. He soon became one of 
the most able lawyers of the state and when the Revolu- 
tion opened he was Chairman of the Lancaster Committee 
of Safety and during the war was Commissary and Super- 



226 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

intendent of the arsenal, barracks and British prisoners there 
when the government left Philadelphia and located at 
Lancaster. This was shortly after his and Justice Evans' 
appointment by the Supreme Executive Council in Phila- 
delphia on August 16, 1777, the oath of office being taken 
on the 19th ; so that he w^as still in Lancaster on April 
6, 1780, when the new High Court was to assemble for 
organization. 

Justice John Evans, being a resident of Chester and near 
at hand, was present, however, as "third Justice," his col- 
league being "second Justice," the Chief Justice being the 
"first." Justice Evans was the oldest member of the court, 
born in 1728, making him three years older than Judge 
Bryan. He was of Welsh parentage, his father bearing the 
same name. He received a classical education, under Dr, 
Allison or Dr. Blair, it is said; and he studied law under 
a preceptor, enabling him to be admitted to the bar at Ches- 
ter in 1749, at his majority. He was one of the first in that 
county to become active in the Revolution on its committees 
and had been a member of the Supreme Executive Council, 
since the previous March 4, 1777, when he was selected 
as "third Justice" of the Supreme Court. It was he who 
had always been Vice-President, pro tern., in Vice-President 
Bryan's absence from the Council. Their positions were 
now reversed, with Justice Bryan following him as "fourth 
Justice." 

The only other member of the High Court of Errors 
and Appeals yet designated was the Judge of Admiralty 
of Pennsylvania, Hon. Francis Hopkinson, who was re- 
appointed on the very morning the High Court was to meet 
for organization. Judge Hopkinson, with the exception of 
President Reed, who was but thirty-nine years of age, was 
the youngest member of the new bench. He was also the 
most talented in many respects. His father, Thomas Hop- 
kinson, was also a lawyer and one of the most learned 
and distinguished men of Philadelphia, when Francis was 
born in 1737. Judge Hopkinson was a graduate of the 
College of Philadelphia and studied law under the Colonial 
Attorney-General, Benjamin Chew, being admitted to the 




Justice George Bryan 

of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania 

From a painting by H. H. Breckenridge in the Supreme Court Room, 

City Hall, Philadelphia 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 227 

bar in 1761, so that he was among the first attorneys to 
practice before Judge Bryan in the Old Court House at 
Second and Market Streets, when the latter came to the 
bench in 1764, at which time the young lawyer was librarian 
of the Philadelphia Library. In 1766 he spent a year in 
London with John Penn, Benjamin West, Lord North and 
others, in hopes of becoming a Commissioner of Customs for 
North America. He did become collector at New Castle 
(Delaware) in 1772 and later lived also in New Jersey 
at Bordentown, becoming a member of the Continental 
Congress for that state in 1776 and so becoming a signer of 
the Declaration and one of the committee to draft the Ar- 
ticles of Confederation. Under Congress he became head 
of the Navy Department and also Treasurer of the Con- 
tinental Loan Office. Judge Hopkinson had become a 
musician, and a poet satirist and humorist also, as well as 
an artist of ability, from both of which latter talents his 
colleague. Justice Bryan, was destined to suffer, if he were 
sensitive to skits and cartoons, although that was not the case 
at this time, as they assembled at the State House Supreme 
Court room and took their seats on April 6, 1780. For Vice- 
President Bryan had himself voted for Judge Hopkinson 
as successor to the late Judge of Admiralty, Hon. George 
Ross, and Judge Hopkinson was now a member of this 
High Court because of that choice. 

No record exists of the seating of the court on the 
elevated bench on the west side of the room; but, if they 
sat in the order of their mention, with Presiding Judge 
Reed in the center, Chief Justice McKean and Justice Evans 
would have been on his right and Justice Bryan and Judge 
Hopkinson on his left, since Justice Atlee was not present. 
It is not known whether it was made a special occasion, 
with the presence of the bench and bar and others ; but it 
is known that at least the three Justices wore black robes 
of office and continued to do, as Justices, until early in 1785, 
five years later, when the Supreme Court adopted the red 
robes, much against certain public sentiment, which thought 
it reminded one too much of the late "red coats." The black 
robed jurists of the High Court of Errors and Appeals, 



228 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

on this day, however, did no business but read the act 
constituting it, "opening in due form," and then unani- 
mously choosing WilHam Bradford, Jr., as Register, ad- 
journing to the 15th of the same month, at 10 o'clock. 

There was but one case at the latter date, when Justice 
Atlee was present, but Judge Hopkinson was absent, because 
the case was one of appeal from his court. The next ses- 
sion, on May 3, 1780, when both Judges Atlee and Hop- 
kinson were absent, the decree of the Admiralty Court was 
affirmed, after which no record of any session exists until 
1782. So there seemed to be little use for this "Supremest" 
court of Pennsylvania at this particular time. It was Jus- 
tice Bryan's first experience on a bench in the State House, 
however, and as a jurist of the highest tribunals of the 
commonwealth. 

The Supreme Court room, or west room, at the State 
House was not occupied, after the High Court adjourned 
on April 6, 1780, until the 10th, when the April term of 
the Supreme Court itself began, with the black-robed court 
sitting in the same place, this time with Chief Justice 
McKean in the center, and Justices Atlee and Evans on his 
right and Justice Bryan on his left, presumably ; or Justice 
Atlee on his right and Justices Evans and Bryan on his left. 
The commission of Justice Bryan was read, making him 
fourth Justice of the Supreme Court and of Oyer and Ter- 
miner and "General Gaol Delivery." 

This was the most busy term in years. The first case 
before them was presented by Attorney-General Jonathan 
Dickinson Sergeant for the plaintiff and the Hon. James 
Wilson for the defense. The Attorney-General had nine 
cases at this term, which lasted, except for two days, April 
15th and May 3rd when the High Court had a short session, 
until May 4th. Mr. Wilson was in five cases, in one of 
which he was pitted against the Attorney-General and in 
one with him. They were an interesting contrast, both 
big men, but Sergeant was a positive brunette while Mr. 
Wilson had the conventional sandy hair and complexion 
of the Scotchman. The Quaker lawyer, William Lewis, 
was the third to present a case and he had seven more 




The Supreme Court Room 
wliere Justice Bryan sat as Fourth Justice — and 







The View Which Justice Bryan Faced as He Sat on the Bench 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 229 

during the session, usually with or against Mr. Wilson, 
these two being probably the ablest attorneys at the 
bar when Justice Bryan sat. In one case Lewis and Wilson 
were against Sergeant and in another Wilson and Sergeant 
were against Lewis, while Lewis was also against Jacob 
Rush, the brother of Dr. Benjamin Rush, as Lewis and 
Wilson were also in another case. Jasper Yeates of Lan- 
caster was the third attorney to appear and he had seven 
cases, usually alone, and his extreme care in keeping records 
of everything was destined to make him practically the first 
Supreme Court reporter, and even to win him the title of 
"The Father of Law in Pennsylvania." Others brought 
their cases : Edward Biddle, Edward Shippen, Jacob Bank- 
son, William Bradford, Andrew Robeson, John Morris, 
William L. Blair, Hartley, Edward Burd, Elisha Price, 
Thomas Smith and a few others. Some of these lawyers 
were equal to any in the history of the commonwealth. 

During mid-summer. Justice Bryan wrote Justice Atlee 
a newsy letter which has been preserved. "I had the pleas- 
ure of writing you about six days since," he writes on 
August 8, 1780, at Philadelphia. "Few arrivals of ships 
have happened here lately, but at Baltimore they have sev- 
eral; some from Martinico. The British fleet lay at Saint 
Lucia on the 16th ult°, but it was supposed they would 
follow the combined fleet to leeward. The reports of cap- 
tures of inward bound vessels' for Baltimore, was mistaken, 
or perhaps a speculating artifice. All were safe arrived 
save three ; and one of these put into Delaware. Yet picka- 
roons disturb the navigation of the Chesapeake. There has 
been some public pork taken by them. 

"Two Baltimore privateers lately took a ship in the north 
seas of Europe, bound from Liverpool to Archangel. The 
captors most unjustifiably destroyed all the documents of the 
vessel and cargo ; and the witnesses, [whilst] they declare 
the bottom to belong to England, assert the cargo to be the 
property of the Empress of Russia 

"A vessel is seized in the Schuylkill for lading flour in 
breach of the embargo. 

"One Joseph Turner, who was tried for treason in the 



230 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Oyer and Terminer here, is catched in Virginia, attempt- 
ing to aid the enemy at New York by loading a vessel there. 
A letter of credence from D. Franks and others, containing 
intelligence, was found on him & a copy sent hither. On 
which rather slight grounds, a warrant of Council is out for 
8 or 10 persons. This is the report of the matter which 
goes about. 

"One Mitchell, brother of the late partner of Saml. 
Carson, deceased, has laden a ship at London for New 
York, pretendedly, taken his wife and family in ; and fur- 
nished with a pass from Dr. Franklin, has run into Boston, 
There a frigate of Congress has seized his property, but 
this will be taken ofif. 'Tis said she left England in June. 
That the English Channel fleet was but 38 of the line ; the 
combined 60 ; but both still were in port. 

"Mr. Izard, our late agent at the Court of Tuscany, is 
come in the French fleet, arrived at Newport, is here. I 
am told he blames our agents in Europe for declining an 
offer made by Count de Vergennes of 5 sail of the line 
to cover So. Carolina, last winter. He thinks himself ill- 
used by Franklin and Dean, and is perhaps rather prejudiced. 
He can give very precise accounts of European affairs. 
Arthur Lee is not come. Dr. Brown, the Physician Gen'l 
of the Army, a man of amiable character, has resigned 
his office [& re] turned home to Virginia. This is one effect 
of the late trial of the Director-General. Green has abso- 
lutely resigned his Q.mr.ship. 

"I am told Genl. Thompson, who, by the way, has in- 
volved his sponsors, Wilson and Yeates, resents the publica- 
tion of his conviction on the Chief Justice. If he does, 
he is just as wrong as when he libelled him. Mr. McKean 
knew not of it before it was in every ones hands. I sent 
Dunlap to Mr. Burd to get an abstract of the proceedings 
in the whole tour, putting into his hands, at the time, 
the list at Carlisle, much in the words of the Pacquett. 
To this Mr. Burd, I judge, prefixed the judgments at 
Lancaster and York. Ever since the resolution, I have 
attended pointedly to this useful warning to offenders, or 
persons likely to offend, and shall still do it, Genl. T's 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 231 

threats notwithstanding. In this way the benefit of punish- 
ment is much extended, and, as I conceive, those who have 
characters to lose, greatly restrained. 

"From the eastward we learn that General Clinton has 
recalled his forces from the Sound of Long Island, on 
w"** Genl. W. was passing the Hudson. Adml. Greaves, 
with 9 of the line, besides frigates, lay near point Judith, 
[or] next part of the main, west of Rhode Island, & not 
two leagues from Newport. You would laugh to think what 
a fright some timid men, both in and out of C[onnecticut?] 
have been in, lest the British should attack the French at 
Rhode Island. 

"Early in June there was a proposition made in Parlia- 
ment to withdraw all forces from America. This was from 
the tediousness of intelligence from Charles T[ownsend]'s 
Ministry, & its tools in England paint our distresses such 
for want of clothes &c. that we are turning savages very 
fast. This to keep up the spirits & hopes of a really dis- 
tressed people. I am not able to say how the Militia will 
turn out. Much will depend on the example set by certain 
people."^ 

Between the spring and fall terms of the court in Phila- 
delphia the Justices were engaged largely in that relief 
tribunal established by the act of May 20, 1767, known as 
the A'^w Prius Courts, held in each county, and there were 
ten counties beside Philadelphia at this time, Chester, Bucks, 
Lancaster, York, Cumberland, Berks, Northampton, Bed- 
ford, Northumberland and Westmoreland, out of which last 
a new one, Washington, was carved the next year, 1781. 
These became very popular courts in the days under the old 
constitution and even later, because they were usually held 
by pairs of Justices, at this period, who mapped out circuits ; 
indeed it is entirely probable that the appointment of a 
fourth Justice may have been due to this need, and the 
Assembly's interest in it. These courts were an inheritance 
from Great Britain, where they were created to take care 
of certain cases in those parts of the country where the local 
judiciary were not sufificiently learned in the law, the sum- 

^ Atlee Papers, Library of Congress. 



232 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

mons always being issued for the Westminster bench, in 
ejectment, trespass and hke cases, to be tried then, "nisi 
prius," or "unless before'' tried by a Justice at the local 
place, the Latin phrase in the summons thus giving name to 
these courts, much as first words of Latin hymns have given 
name to them. The circuits would be made up according 
to the needs, both as Supreme Court sessions and Nisi Prius 
sessions, and the court itself would decide them among 
themselves. The Nisi Prius were the chief circuit courts, 
however ; and they would be arranged with one or two 
justices to the circuit as the needs of the counties at that 
particular time indicated. The records of these courts have 
been so badly cared for that no history of them could be 
written, even if it should seem desirable. Sometimes Justices 
went in pairs and sometimes singly, and as they usually 
went on horse-back and some of the lawyers accompanied 
them — for all the big lawyers had cases in all the counties — 
the legal cavalcade was liable to be a jolly one, as well as 
have its times of hardship and exposure. 

Justice Bryan's home in Philadelphia in 1781 was in 
Union Street, an east and west street between Spruce and 
Pine Streets, at Second, Third and other streets in that 
neighborhood. His family was a large one, apparently of 
nine or ten children at this time, only two of them being of 
age, namely Sarah, at twenty-four and Samuel at twenty- 
two. The records show the others, if all living, to have been 
Arthur at twenty, Francis at eighteen, Mary at fifteen, 
George at fourteen, Elizabeth at twelve, William at ten, 
Thomas at nine, and Jonathan at six.^ Tlie eldest son, 
Samuel, was showing himself a young man of ability, so 
that within three years from this time, he was to follow in 
the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin as Clerk of the As- 
sembly, chosen to it on November 3, 1784. He was also to 
become a fellow publicist with his father as shall presently 
appear. 

The past year had witnessed a movement of the Wilson 



^ Records of the Second Presbyterian. Church, Philadelphia. The youngest, 
Jonathan, was founder of the South Carolina branch of the family, where he 
has had distinguished descendants. 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 233 

element that threatened the popularity of Justice Bryan's 
party. This was the effort of Mr. Wilson and his friends, 
after the fall of Charleston in the spring of 1780, to form a 
bank to supply funds for the army, which was successful 
and was opened on July 17th, and with such excellent results 
that by October, the gratitude of the whole union was so 
great that it began to react upon the people of Pennsylvania 
and to threaten to weaken the "Constitutionalist" or Bryan 
forces. It resulted in such attacks on Mr. Wilson, person- 
ally, as a rehabilitator of all the old elements that they had 
opposed, that he was compelled to issue a public statement 
after the election, disavowing any present intention of agita- 
tion against the constitution of 1776. This success, how- 
ever, led, at the beginning of the present year, 1781, to an 
effort, by Mr. Wilson, also successful, of transforming this 
bank into a national bank, like those of England and France,, 
and placing Robert Morris in the Congressional ofnce of 
Financier-General, with this Bank of North America as a 
national organ. Mr. Wilson was also Advocate-General to 
the French Government and aided in persuading Maryland,, 
at the instance of our ally, to accept the Articles of Con- 
federation on February 2, 1781, and so making them the 
second constitution of the union. Virginia was also rapidly 
being compelled to join others in surrendering the western 
lands to the union by a course of isolation, so that a tre- 
mendous national movement was in progress that was por- 
tentious with apprehension, among the Constitutionalists of 
whom Justice Bryan was the recognized head. The bank 
plan was under way during the spring months, while Justice 
Bryan was on the Supreme bench at the April term, 1781. 

On April 10, Chief Justice McKean, with Justices Atlee, 
Evans and Bryan opened the Supreme Court, for a busy 
term that lasted until July 6th, in what must have been long 
cases. As usual William Lewis, the Quaker lawyer, was 
much in evidence with the greatest number of cases, namely, 
six, Attorney Jasper Yeates of Lancaster having the next 
largest number, five, and Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant com- 
ing a close third with four. Mr. Wilson had three and 
Thomas Smith of Bedford and Alexander Wilcocks-Hartley 



234 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

of Philadelphia two each, with some others in somewhat 
similar proportion. The full bench was confronted by an 
equally heavy, if not heavier program, on September 4th, 
and they had been sitting about a month and a half when 
they were cheered by news of the surrender of Lord Com- 
wallis and the British forces, and the close of the long 
Revolution. The term lasted into the next year, January 
19, 1782. Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant had the remarkable 
number of sixteen cases, while Mr. Lewis came a close 
second with thirteen and Mr. Wilson with ten, Mr. Brad- 
ford following next with six. These were important cases 
where Wilson would be pitted against Lewis and Sergeant, 
or Bradford be opposed by such a powerful combination as 
Lewis, Wilson and Sergeant, as he was twice. These must 
have been interesting days to the Chief Justice and Justices 
Atlee, Evans and Bryan. 

Justice Bryan and Justice Atlee of Lancaster became 
intimate friends, and enough of their correspondence has 
been preserved to show Justice Bryan's system of county 
correspondence that kept him in such close touch with affairs 
all over the state. On March 26, of this year, 1781, he 
writes: "I must beg your excuse for my long silence, but 
the arrival of my son^ from Europe this winter & getting 
him set agoing in the world, by procuring consignments to 
the Havanna, has taken up my attention greatly. You too 
have been silent. 

"A subject, near to me, has, however, provoked me to 
break out & resume my correspondence with you. The 
Assembly, last December, voted salaries for divers officers, 
which might have done. But a bill has appeared in the 
public prints, some days since, to settle salaries for three 
years. In this your allowance, in the meantime depreciated 
one quarter, is lowered nominally ; but that of the 3rd and 
4th Justices, equally debased by the fall of the money, is 
reduced by the committee, Jacks, Hogg & Steinmetz, to 
2/3d, so that it scarcely exceeds half of the sum ascertained 
in the spring of 1777, before you and Mr. Evans accepted. 
I say no more on it, but refer to the inclosed Newspaper, 

^ Samuel or Arthur, his first and second sons. 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 235 

& another yet to be printed. The pieces are written by an 
independent man in this city & will perhaps have some effect ; 
otherwise I can not stay with you. Lowry, indeed, absurdly 
moved the house to strike off the 4th Justice, & has, I am 
told, said he aimed at me ; Why, I cannot say. I never had 
any dispute with him. Others proceed more cunningly, by 
voting an insufficient salary. 

"But we are all going into confusion ; last week the 
Assembly determined to emit £300,000 state paper, as the 
only resource to carry on the w^ar. That is, to lay a tax of 
2/3 or 3/4 upon all the money in circulation. Thus to 
burden the monied men, dealers and others that handle 
money, and to enable the rascally part of the community to 
pay their debts with moon-shine. For if the intended money 
can be passed, such will be the event. That they desire to 
debase the new Continental [issue], I do not wonder, as it 
would proportionally lower the six yearly taxes ordered last 
sitting. The former bubble arose partly from mistakes of 
the principles of finance, & partly from the difficulties we 
were in. Much may be said to excuse it. But that a legis- 
lature should deliberately forecast a scheme of this sort, 
is really promoting iniquity by law. They have not, how- 
ever, the delusion & enthusiasm of the Whigs now to build 
upon and therefore the playing of the Bubble again is 
scarcely practicable. They dread to lay equal and effectual 
taxes; as if their constituents were a strange kind of stupid 
beings, who would not yield a part of their property to serve 
the rest. Every countryman must be sensible that the United 
States being declared to be in rebellion, the Lnds and all 
other property are, in the eye of the law of England, for- 
feited ; and they must be favored men, they must have ex- 
cellent interests, who can get acts of grace to distinguish 
them from the general wreck of the country. In this cir- 
cumstance, they must be as weak as our Tories, who are 
involved in the plunder of St. Eustachius, that dream of 
being safe without proper exertions. These adventurers 
fondly think that their friends in England will procure them 
redress for their property taken by Rodney. But the British 
officers seem to be taking measures, that, if relief were de- 



236 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

signed, it may be impossible; for a ship of 32 guns, a 
merchant frigate, has been taken into St. Francis, laden 
with goods and negroes, even family plate going for Ja- 
maica. Surely our people are not less men than other 
nations. No nation, when all was at stake, but would give 
up a part to save the rest. There is no little folly, much 
wickedness and great daring in this design of emitting more 
money. It must disappoint itself & renew distresses from 
which we had begun to recover. Honest and proper meas- 
ures are the most simple. Reduce our bills of credit to less 
than £200,000. This would be full enough for a medium 
of trade and taxes, when added to the hard money, which 
would then come out & join in circulation. Upon this 
ground taxes, equal and efficacious, might be devised. He 
that paid latest would not pay less than he that paid first. 
There would be no bribe, as at present, to keep back, either 
to the taxable, collector or any other. We could then, per- 
haps, borrow^ but who, in his senses, will lend the public, or 
any other, when a false weight & false measure is established 
by law? 

"What must foreigners think we are? An association of 
vilains, while we go on thus." ^ 

The attack on the Justices' salaries mentioned in the above 
letter was the beginning of a campaign between the two 
parties, a preparation for the fight to displace the Constitu- 
tionalists under Justice Bryan's leadership; and the organ- 
ization of the Bank of Pennsylvania into the Bank of North 
America during this year, and its support of the union, con- 
tributed greatly to raise the prestige of the Republicans 
under James Wilson's guidance ; and, as a matter of fact, 
did seriously disarrange the Bryanite great majorities in the 
Assembly, in October, 1781, coincidentally with the sur- 
render of Cornwallis, which was but slightly later in the 
same month, and would have still more disarranged that 
majority had it occurred before the election. 

This new Assembly had been in existence a couple of 
months, when Justice Bryan wrote his friend Justice Atlee 
another illuminating letter on New Year's eve, this time, 

^ Atlee Papers, Library of Congress. 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 237 

also, because of "a late transaction of our very ivorthy 
legislature," said he "Besides, Mr. McKean is going, or 
perhaps gone for New Castle county, on occasion of the 
death of his brother's widow, who has left two orphans 
without any guardian. This brother, it is supposed, was 
lost at sea above two years since. Our Chief [Chief Justice 
McKean, also] has just hurried his third daughter, a fine 
girl of 12 years, who had spent her childhood mostly at 
Bordentown. This stroke was unexpected, tho" the child 
had not been well for some weeks. 

"You must have perceived the operations of the cabal 
in the Asembly. Determined on a more hasty revision of 
the Constitution than that appointed for the year 1783, they 
have begun by an attack on the character of those who were 
considered as the supporters of it. This you must have 
observed in the rancorous and inveterate pursuit of Mr. 
Reed. Mr. R. is now at the bar again. The noisy and 
unspecified complaint about an undue election for the county 
of Philadelphia, calculated by weight of 1500 figures to bear 
down all defense against the gross calumnies contained in 
the petitions, was another part of the plan. The exalting 
and raising out of their humiliation divers Tory and neutral 
characters, &c. &c. Among other strokes, an indirect at- 
tempt to remove the present judges of the Supreme Court 
by holding them still to low and precarious salaries, in mani- 
fest contempt and breach of the constitution, which requires 
fixed [salaries], and for delaying of which, they have no 
longer an excuse, now hard money is become the standard 
again. In short, they have passed an act for giving us a 
salary for a year, and that year, by a monstrous ex post facto 
claus and wording, to begin from the 22d of June last 
[1781], so that all specie, price received, is to be accounted 
as part of the reduced salaries for the current year, half- 
gone before they finished their bill passed. The salaries 
which appeared in the bill, as published by Hall & Sellers 
on 22d November, stand unaltered, except that that of the 
Chief Justice is increased to £900. Just as this was done, 

I am well informed that Mr. — stood up & acquainted 

the house that he had a very important matter against one 



238 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

of the judges to disclose ; he was sorry for it, as he respected 
him personally, but his duty did not allow him to be silent, 
&c. &c. He then said, as we are upon their salaries, the 
2°^ Justice [Atlee] has received pay and rations, ever since 
the year 1778, as Commissary of Prisoners. Such was the 

import of Mr. 's speech. A full silence ensued as to 

his information; whether it prevented an amendment of 
your allowance is uncertain, but it is clear that they left 
£400 standing in the bill; Mr. Evans's and mine are at £300. 

It is whispered, I suppose injuriously, that Mr. E 

says he is contented. Only 15 dissented from the final 
establishment of the act, of whom 13 have inserted strong 
reasons for their conduct on the minutes. 

"Mr. McKean & I have agreed to repulse this stroke 
against the contrivers of it, by standing up against it stiffly. 
But we wish to see you here on the 7"^ of January [1782] 
to have your mature advice on this illiberal & extravagant 
attack on the judicial department. Besides, there are many 
important trials to take place. Information, in particular, 
against the importing of British goods, on which a dozen 
trials may be necessary. Congress have knocked up this 
trade by setting the privateers on it, by a late ordinance. 

"The Junto [Wilson and his friends?] is rather staggered 
by the event of the evidence on the Phil* election. Many 
of the charges (the specified charges, 24 in number) were 
not attempted to be proved. The whole appeared to be 
common proceeding, with some usual inaccuracies. The 
clerks at Wentz's, the upper place, were not sworn ; but 
this was not charged. There is a charge that the clerks at 
German Town were not sworn. It appeared they were. It 
was rather uncertain whether they took in a vote at Wentz's 
before two, afternoon. Lacey's letter was very ill-expressed, 
yet it had no effect. Every company of Militia was at full 
liberty to choose, no proof of force or confinement having 
been made. Yet much evidence for the defense is yet to be 
given. They have also reserved opportunity to support the 
charges by further proof. It is adjourned till 10 days after 
the Assembly meets again. Meantime, the Council take it 
up on Jany. the 3'''^. The very same charges are tabled there. 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 239 

tho' several were given up. Three members of the board 
take the evidence in a committee. 

"By a publication of Rivington's, it should seem that 
something material has passed in So. Carolina. He has 
defeated & killed Genl. Greene ; but he assigns his 
news to friends among us. A report of 2000 men gone to 
S. Carolina from N. York is said to be a reality of 1100 
only. The latest accounts from Gen'l Greene's camp are of 
22^ Nov"". He had just passed the Congaree to move down- 
wards. Cornwallis, Arnold, Franklin & many others are 
gone for Europe. There is a stir rising at Boston. Govr. 
Hancock, di satis fyed with the salary permanently fixed on 
the office, has applied for an increase. As he lives very 
high, perhaps £3000, our money, proves insufficient. The 
people think they had done very amply. 

"Our Assembly made an house about Novr. Z^ ; Sat till 
last Friday ; have passed the bill for destroying the Judicial 
branch; a small supplement for bread and flour shipped off, 
& a short act concerning the frontiers. These are all, I 
believe, — partly heard a contested election & spent £3000 
specie and upwards. But they have filched £600 pr. amm. 
of the Judges. They have finished a bill for £500,000 specie 
Tax, so far as to publish it ; but a strong was made and 
will be again made to insert, "or paper money," in order 
to make another profitable speculation for gorging the vul- 
tures, who are not satisfied with £80,000 or £100 thousand, 
filched last summer by buying up £270,000 bills of credit at 
six, eight and ten for one, & selling it out to the country at 
2\ for one ; for thus they realized an immense Tax in their 
own pockets, tho' £40,000 hard money of the £100,000 has 
not reached the Treasury; & yet without the knowledge of 
the people who contribute to it. Mr. Henry, your neighbor, 
has a full idea of this flagitious business. The Assembly- 
men seem to have a glimpse of it & showed great dislike 
of it. 

"Please to give my best respects, with the compliments 
of the season, to Mrs. Atlee & the young ladies" — etc. 

"P. S. — I have run out to a length I did not expect. Col. 
Magaw, before the house rose, moved for a sum to be 



240 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

appropriated for the relief of our Line, now in Carolina, 
but Messrs. Delaney, Meredith, &c. were loud against the 
measure. So it was over-ruled. Besides the amount of the 
present taxes for paper, there is about £150,000 more, chiefly 
re-emitted since Octr. If the Assembly will insert paper 
in the bill, I doubt not we shall have enough more sent 
forth to lower it first, buy it in again, & then take advantage 
of the people at 1^ or 2, or 2^ as before." 

"Not a penny from any state has reached the financier 
[Morris], save Pennsylvania. The southern states are not 
able. New England & Jersey lay all out within themselves. 
New York has the Green Mountain dispute to occupy her. 
Delaware is clothing & payment reduces forces. Genl. W 
is very urgent that the Army be recruited."^ 

This letter of New Year's Eve, 1782, i. e. December 31, 
1781, plainly betrays apprehension of the national bank, or 
Bank of North America group, of which James Wilson was 
acknowledged leader ; and, when it refers to "Delaney, 
Meredith" and others in the Assembly, it was naming the 
Wilson leaders there. Had Justice Bryan been aware of 
the plans afoot and their real significance he might well have 
been more than merely apprehensive ; he could have felt 
profoundly startled and been fully justified. He did not 
know, however, and as he had held the old constitution 
against all comers for seven years, and in that period seen 
his allied institution, the Articles of Confederation, fully 
adopted as the inter-state constitution, he felt that he had 
grounds for confidence in these two fundamental instru- 
ments of state and nation. 

As some of these manifestations of political hostility had 
to do with the Supreme Court during the past year, 1782, 
let a glance be taken at the April term, which began on the 
10th and continued to the 27th. Chief Justice McKean, and 
Justices Atlee, Evans and Bryan sat on the bench in the 
arched west room at the State House and listened to a good 
many cases. As usual William Lewis had the most, thirteen 
in all, while James Wilson came a close second with eleven. 

^ Atlee Papers, Library of Congress. The last paragraph is on the margin 
of the first page. 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 241 

Mr. Yeates of Lancaster, Mr. Bradford and Mr. Reed — ex- 
President Reed — of Philadelphia came next with ten each, 
while Mr. Sergeant nearly equalled them with nine, and 
Mr. Bankson with eight. Some were big cases with Brad- 
ford and Reed pitted against Lewis and Wilson. A big case 
was almost sure to have two or more of the above lawyers 
in it. There were over a dozen other lawyers with from 
one to five cases : Coxe, Currie, Blair, Hartley, Hoofnagle, 
Smith, Scott, Biddle, Humphries, Osborne, Wilcocks, Read, 
Galbraith, and others. 

It was during this term that a new paper was launched 
in Philadelphia that was destined to have very much to do 
with the Supreme Court. The previous year, 1781, a journal, 
very vigorous controversially and favorable to the Bryan 
element, was established by Francis Bailey, in Market Street 
above Third, called The Freeman s Journal, and it had con- 
tained some criticism of Chief Justice McKean for accept- 
ing the ofifice of President of Congress as a Delaware mem- 
ber of that body. He was defended by "Jurisperitus," who 
was supposed to be the Chief Justice himself, although on 
August 22, 1781, he did not hesitate to publicly name two 
of those attacking him, one of them being Mr. Sergeant. 
This paper became a great organ of controversy in the new 
political changes, and there were not wanting writers to 
attack the national bank crowd and also to attack the Su- 
preme Court, whose bench was made up of the Bryan 
element. 

As this paper seemed to prosper in the new and acrid 
controversial manner, a very able and very vitriolic editor, 
whose abilities along this line had led him into conflict with 
the government in Maryland, Eleazar Oswald, a kinsman 
of one of the English gentlemen who were engaged in 
negotiating the treaty of peace, Richard Oswald, thought 
here was a rich field for his talents, and in April, 1782, 
launched the Independent Gazetteer in Third Street. He 
was in fine fettle by the September term of the Supreme 
Court, in which only the Chief Justice and Justices Atlee 
and Bryan sat ; and as this court, because it contained 
appointees of the Bryan party, was the object of political 



242 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

attack just as the Assembly and Council had been, the 
sympathizers with the national bank crowd could see only 
occasion for criticism in anything this court did. Therefore 
on October 1, Mr. Oswald had allowed, or written, an 
anonymous open letter to the Chief Justice against his course 
in the case of Col. Proctor. Promptly the Court on October 
12, 1782, caused the arrest of Editor Oswald for libel upon 
the court. The grand jury did not indict, however, and the 
court reproved them, and sent them back for reconsideration. 
They still refused and made a public defense of their course 
in the press. These occasioned articles on the grand jury, 
which were signed by "Jurisperitus" and "Adrian" in de- 
fense of the court, which Judge Francis Hopkinson says 
were attributed, the former to the Chief Justice and the 
latter to Justice Bryan. ^ The first one of "Adrian's" ap- 
peared in the Freeman's Journal on January 15, 1783, and 
is a well written account of the whole case, introductory to 
a treatment of judicial control of juries, which appeared in 
the same journal on January 29th. It is worth while gaining 
some idea of it, even if not absolutely known to be by Judge 
Bryan, since so able a man as Judge Hopkinson was so 
certain it was, for the rest of his life. 

"There are some among us," writes "Adrian," "who have 
a mistaken idea concerning of a grand jury, as if it were 
less subject to the direction of the court than a pety jury. 
Among these we may reckon the protesting members of the 
late grand jury of the city and county. Perhaps the words 
grand and petty may mislead, as they seem to indicate a 
superiority in the first over the last. But this is mere 
sound. Grand and petit are relative terms, signifying in 
the French language, from which they are taken, great and 
small. Thus the jury in attaint, consisting of 24 persons, 
who formerly tried a traverse jury, when accused of bring- 
ing in a false verdict, was also styled a grand jury.- It is 
obvious, indeed, that the jury which tries and decides 
ultimately, upon the guilt or innocency of the culprit, must 



^ The Miscellaneous Essays, etc., Francis Hopkinson, Vol. I, p. 194. 
^ Blackstone, Vol. 3rd, p. 351. [Foot-notes other than figures, in these- 
pages,<are from the text quoted. — The Author.] 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 243 

be more important, than the inquest, which only inquires 
into the charge, and formed the accusation. Most com- 
monly, both are made up of men, uninformed in the law, 
who must lean on the court and attorney general for aid. 

"Grand jurors are not the choice of the people, but are 
summoned by the sheriff or his deputy ; and such is the con- 
fidence of the law in the justices, that authority is given 
them by statute, 3'"'^ Henry 8, cap. 12, in quarter sessions, 
as well as at the assizes, to reform the panel, by striking 
out names, and putting in others at their discretion. Be- 
sides this, persons called upon for their services are liable 
to lawful chalenges like as petty jurors, by the persons, 
who are to be charged before them. And if the grand 
inquest conceal any offense, it is the court's duty to order 
a jury to be summoned to enquire into such concealment, 
and upon conviction to punish the guilty.^ Thus the law 
supposes that grand jurors, as well as other officers may 
offend, and has provided for their trial. If the grand jury 
were to present persons on corrupt practices used with the 
members of the jury, as has often happened, or if it find a 
bill, upon the cast of dice," or if any other irregularity vitiate 
their proceedings, the court will quash all doings so circum- 
stanced, and punish the offenders. For this purpose it must 
be necessary, sometimes, to open, in the most public man- 
ner, what has passed among the jurors in their chamber. 
Grand jurors transgress their bounds, if they admit any 
evidence, which has not been previously proposed to the 
bench, and received its approbation ; and ordinarily the 
court sends down to them only witnesses or other evidence 
to support the charge, and they find upon that which is 
adduced on the side of the prosecution ; for their finding is 
but of the nature of an accusation, to be afterwards tried. 
This has been the settled practice for ages past,^ and noth- 
ing more than a few unexemplified opinions in the law books 
can be shown to the contrary. 

1 2nd Hale's Hist. 160, I. 1st Hawkins', 215. 

2 Bum's Justice, Title Jurors, V. § 9. 

^4 Blackstone, Comment., p. 300'. [He quotes it, with:] Thus does this 
elegant and enlightened writer state the practice; he who in his most useful 
work has spoken of the transcendent privilege of trial by jury, with encomi- 
ums which some may think to border upon enthusiasm." 



244 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

"If the grand inquest might receive all that offers, the 
most improper and illegal testimony might be rece'ived ; but 
then, what would become of those approved rules of evi- 
dence, which the wisdom of ages has devised for the safety 
of the innocent and the investigation of truth? One prac- 
tice would obtain tomorrow ; another the next day ; or the 
mode would depend on the culprit, who he was, and who 
his friends. Interested or disabled witnesses would be 
brought in or rejected, as caprice, party or prejudice pre- 
dominated. It is true, the grand inquest retires by itself 
and so is not under the constant attention of the court ; yet 
an enquiry by the grand inquest, before the court, would be 
proper in case of intricacy. This sitting apart may have 
been allowed for two reasons : first lest the accused get 
knowledge of the charges against them, and escape from 
justice; for anciently the indictment of an offender pre- 
ceeded his arrest.^ Hence the importance of swearing the 
jurors to keep the public secrets. Secondly, because, the 
grand inquest, enquiring so far only, as is necessary for 
indicting, this doth not require such particular attention, as 
the business of the traverse jury; and the court may there- 
fore procefed with trials, whilst the grand inquest is em- 
ployed in another place in forming accusations. It is for 
this reason that they ought to be persons of good under- 
.standing. 

"That the grand inquest can have no testimony except 
that sent by the court is manifest from hence, that wit- 
nesses sworn before any magistrate, not of the court, could 
not be punished for perjury, as the attestation in such case, 
would be the doing of an incompetent officer, and thus 
one of the chief tyes upon the mind of the person testifying, 
viz. ]>rosecution for falsifying upon oath, would be lost. 
The law, indeed, supposes that ever}^ one examined before 
the grand jury, is qualified in court, as it gives the clerk 
a fee for administering the attestation. It is remarkable, 
that when an officer, or private man, is by act of Assembly 
directed to take an oath, special authority is also given to 

' Institutes, 175. 2 Hawkins 184. 4 Blackstone 285. 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 245 

some judge, justice of the peace, or other magistrate, to 
administer such oath. 

"Should the gra'nd inquest, in the manner contended, 
liear the evidence for and against the accused, it is mani- 
fest that their inquiries might probably enable a multitude 
of guilty persons to escape. On the other hand, such an 
investigation would bear so much the look of a trial, that 
it would carry down the prejudice of a verdict against 
the culprit, and prevent a fair hearing before the petty 
jury. Whereas an indictment found against an inno- 
cent man, upon the evidence of prosecution only, will 
be contradicted, and the party acquitted, with less hesitation, 
upon a full and public enquiry, and withovit injuring his 
character."^ 

"If the grand jury could examine all testimony that 
should ofifer we should lose, in great measure, the important 
advantage of the public prosecutor.- In ancient times, par- 
ticularly in the Greek and Roman States, passion and malice 
greatly discoloured and discredited prosecution for crimes, 
and as every one injured was then obliged to step forth 
personally, as an accuser, many virtuous and prudent men 
were restrained from hazzarding their characters, by be- 
coming public informers. But the attorney general, derived 
to us from the feudal institution, being called upon by 
office to appear against the guilty, much of the operation 
of private resentment is prevented, and individuals may, in 
modern times, without injury or imputation on themselves, 
appear as witnesses, whilst this public accuser, influenced 
by motives of duty merely, prosecutes with zeal, tempered by 
moderation. But if the private accuser be led into the grand 
jury, with all his provoked feelings, and the bridle which 
this officer holds upon criminal prosecutions be slackened 
down, the inconveniences and enormities, formerly experi- 
enced, will be renewed, and grand juries lose their im- 
portance, perhaps their use. Hence this palladium of inno- 
cence may be lost, and we may be driven to admit of the 



^ As in the late case of the commissioners of the city and county, who 
were indicted for extortion and oppression. 

2 Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws, Vol. I, page 117. 



246 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

filing of information by the attorney general, as the less 
dangerous course of the two. 

"It is therefore safest for grand jurors, as well as for 
the accused, that the witnesses be sent to them, be sub- 
jected to the objections of this officer, and that the bench 
decide thereupon in open court. 

"If gentlemen, who may be called to serve their country 
in this important business, would be content thus to take 
evidence from the attorney general, under the direction of 
the court, they would confine themselves within the proper 
bounds, marked out by the wisdom of the law, and the ex- 
perience of ages ; but if by a contrary practice, they open a 
door to the abuses above mentioned, of which few persons 
have any idea, they will soon find themselves involved in a 
labyrinth of errors, just as they wood, if they were to at- 
tempt to frame indictments themselves, or venture to correct 
or alter the forms laid before them by the attorney general. 

"Now let the claims of the lat. grand jurors for the 
city and county be measured by the doctrines heretofore 
stated, supported, not by nameless writers, but by the most 
reputable authorities in the law, which are quoted in the 
margent,^ and then it will appear, that through the contents 
of the memorial they have published, may be agreeable to 
their own notions, they do not quadrate with the law of the 
land. It was extraordinary, indeed, for persons who could 
mistake the oath of a witness, for that of a grand juror, to 
prescribe to the judges of the supreme court.^ 

"The grand jury has been mentioned in my first publi- 
cation, as a part of legal machinery, but with no idea that 
their judgment was or ought to be under any influence or 
bias whatever. They must be carefully held to the rules of 
law in receiving of evidence, but when they have examined, 
they are to decide for themselves. In this way, and in this 
only, can the people at large be let into, and possess a share 

^ This obsolete word, and some other quaint expressions are fair ear- 
marks of Justice Bryan's style. There is no more doubt in the mind of the 
present writer that this was from his pen than there was in that of Judge 
Hopkinson. This, in fact, seems to be one of the best examples of the Justice's 
style known to the present writer. 

- In the memorial the 16 signers allege, that they were sworn to present 
the whole truth. Neither they, nor any others impanelled on a grand inquest 
were ever so attested. 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 247 

of the power of judging. It is evident, however, that if 
they were not introduced to this dehcate, but important 
privilege, under such cautions and hmitations, as have been 
layed upon them by great men who lived before our days, 
they could not be trusted with any share of the business. 
Left to themselves, their decisions would be wild and 
capricious, and new modes of proceeding would be adopted 
on every occasion, till that enquiries by jury and jury 
trial would be, by common consent, discarded ; for among 
all civilized people, substantial justice will be sought and 
attained in whatever mode it may be had. 

"I will only further remark, that the discretion of the 
judges, which the signers of the memorial seem so greatly 
to dread, is not an arbitrary power of doing or forbearing 
anything at the mere caprice or will of the court. Dis- 
cretion, in legal understanding, is an ability to discern be- 
tween right and wrong, according to the rules of recourse, 
law, and justice, and not of private opinion.^ 
"25 January, 1783. 

A full account of the afifair by "Jurisperitus" appeared 
in the next issue of the Freeman's Journal, February 5, 
1783, and it is plainly the work of Chief Justice McKean, 
and, so far as the court was concerned, closed the incident. 
Thus it was that Judge Hopkinson began with his satirical 
skits, under various pen names. He had one in the Penn- 
sylvania Packet in January, 1783, in which, among other 
things he said, in the naivete of a supposed ignorant 
countryman : "At length I saw a piece in the Freeman's 
Journal of the 15th instant, signed Adrian; and was horri- 
bly shocked to find sentiment and doctrines advanced on 
this subject so very contrary to those I had entertained. 
As I doubt not but this performance must have been 
written by a very great man, from the elegance of the style, 
and by a very great lawyer, from the subtilty of the reason- 
ing, I began to fear I was all in the wrong." Thereupon 
he quotes from State Tracts at length. He makes much 
of Adrian's calling the grand jury "a legal machine," and 

1 5 Coke, page 100. 



248 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

calls him "our new Pope." On February 1st, he addresses 
himself to both the Chief Justice and Justice Bryan, as 
"Judge Jurisperitus" and "Judge Adrian." Not content 
with prose, the Admiralty Judge launched into verse — also 
anonymously, as was the custom — in "A Descant on 
Adrian's assertion that a grand jury is nothing more than 
a legal machine, subject to the direction and control of the 
court." 

"I'VE A THOUGHT— WHAT'S IT LIKE?" 

'"Twas winter — round the social hearth 
Devoted all to glee and mirth, 
A social few, in humor gay, 
Were sporting half the night away ; 
And still some quaint device was found, 
As laughter, wit, and wine went round. 

" 'Attend,' says Didius, 'if you will, 
I'll make a trial of your skill ; 

" 'A thought hath just popp'd in my mind, 
Let everyone a likeness find ; 
And he that can't a likeness fit 
Shall take a glass to whet his wit. 
For wine is known to be specific 
In making barren brains prolific : 
And 'tis past doubt, a bumper will him ease 
Who is hard bound in making similies. 
A thought doth now my fancy strike ; 
Pray tell me what my thought is like.' 

" 'Tis like a broom, a door, a lock, 
A wagon, lute, a barbcr's-block.' 

"Quoth Didius, 'what a medley here ! 
Things so dissimilar, I fear 
Cannot by any skill be shown 
Like to a single thing unknown. 
But now the group's together brought 
I'll tell you what it was I thought. 

" 'A learned author, Adrian hight. 
Did late in Bailey's journal write, 
And plainly proved by dint of law, 
That jurymen are men of straw; 



JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 249 

And for no other use designed 
But to confirm the Judge's mind; 
That they've no conscience of their own, 
But from the bench must take their tone ; 
And have no eyes to see what's right, 
Unless the court affords them light; 
And tho' their doings may seem tragic, 
They're phantoms rais'd by legal magic ; 

" 'Whom conjuring judges take to court, 
To shew their skill in making sport ; 
To toss about like any jack-stone. 
And for authority — quote Blackstone ; 
Referring us to page three hundred ; 
As if judge Blackstone never blunder'd. 

" 'All this did Adrian in his fury, 

Pronounce against a late grand jury; 

And proved that animal rationale 

With jurymen will never tally: 

Because 'tis plainly to be seen 

A jury's but a mere machine. 

My thoughts thus on grand juries ran ; 

Make out a likeness if you can.' " 

Thereupon Titus is made to show that juries are Hke 
brooms ; Sempronius, that they are hke a door ; Endocius, 
that they are hke a clock; Dion, that it was hke the lead 
horse of a team ; until Didius closed the session.^ 

Doubtless, as has been said by one of Judge Bryan's 
contemporaries, there never was a worse period of un- 
licensed epistolary and journalistic battles than in these 
days of the Freenians Journal and Oswald's Gazetteer. 
Judge Hopkinson, again under his pen name, tried to molify 
it with fun in his account of a "Terrible Uproar" in the 
"Eminent Family" of "Lady Pennsylva," who had a son 
"Independence," after her husband's death, and was com- 
pelled to find a nurse. She tried Reedina [Pres. Reed], and 
wearying of her, wanted "Madam Potterina" [Gen. Potter], 
but enemies of these two secured "Mrs. Richardson" [Pres. 
Dickinson]. Friends of both sides intrigued with disastrous 
results. Mrs. Richardson's chambermaid, "Kitty Oswald," 
the seamstress, Miss Jackson ; the cook, "Peggy Rush" 

^ Ho.pkinson's Essays, Vol. I, p. 228. 



250 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

[Dr. Benj. Rush] and her brother, the clerk, "Jacob," and 
others, were opposed by "Reedina" and her chief steward, 
"Thomas" [the Chief Justice] and the under steward, 
"George" [Justice Bryan], "Fanny Belly," the second girl 
[Bailey], "Jonathan," the late coachman [Sergeant] and 
others made the "Uproar," although all professed attach- 
ment to young son, "Independence." One day, in the 
absence of Lady Pennsylva, Kitty and Fanny begin a tongue 
lashing designed to expose family secrets. Kitty says 
Fanny [Bailey] was brought by George [Justice Bryan] 
from Lancaster to do his dirty work. Fanny replies in kind 
and there was soon a free-for-all encounter, when the Lady 
Pennsylva returned and upbraided them all, saying they 
should be judged by some house-hold economy servants 
[the Council of Censors] who came to her every seven 
months [years.] ^ 

Of course, this was all political, not personal. Judge 
Hopkinson and Justice Bryan sat side by side on the bench 
of the High Court of Errors and Appeals several times dur- 
ing the year 1782 and 1783 when this controversy raged. 
During 1782 most of the cases (and there were not many) 
in the High Court came from the Supreme Court, so that 
the justices concerned had to take no part in the case, and 
it made such inroads upon the court management, that, in 
1783, at the April term', two of the additional three mem- 
bers provided for in the constitution, were appointed by 
President Dickinson and the Council, namely, Hon. Henry 
Wynkoop of Berks county, who took his seat on April 6, 
and Hon. Samuel Miles, who took his seat on the 15th. 
This latter Judge was to figure, soon, in the septimal con- 
stitutional revisers and critics, the Council of Censors, in 
which Justice Bryan was to make another stand for the 
adjusted old constitution of 1701. 

^ In this uproar, p. 308, one of them "threw a quart of slush on George, 
the steward's old scarlet cloak; but George avoided fighting openly, and only 
slily pinched his adversaries as opportunity offered." The date of this piece 
not being known except that it was about 1783-4-5, this reference to the scarlet 
robes recently adopted by the court, probably at the April term, 1785, seems 
to place the skit later than its order in the Essays would indicate. A writer 
in the Independent Gazetteer, Oswald's paper, of May 21, 1785, objects to 
the recent change from black to red robes, which would suggest that it was 
done at the April term, 1785. He also objects to their use of the old Congress 
room as a dressing room, since Congress was no longer there. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Justice Bryan and the Council of Censors 

1783 

The remarkable success of the national bank group in 
revivifying the finances of the union, in their imperium in 
imperio — for such the Financier-General with the Bank of 
North America were — encouraged them to great vigor of 
plans for the coming year 1783. They proposed nothing 
less than an attack on both the state and national constitu- 
tions, and, when one says "they," he means in a very large 
measure the leader of them, James Wilson. The public 
debt of the United States was the greatest immediate ques- 
tion before them, and they attacked it with the same skill 
and courage as they had created financial power for a help- 
less state and nation in 1780 and '81 and won the war. They 
first proposed to capture the state Assembly in order to 
send Mr. Wilson to Congress to begin operations there. 
Their success at the October election in 1782, while not so 
great as they hoped, was great enough to elect John Dickin- 
son, whom Mr. Wilson favored for chief executive of the 
state, over General Potter (whom the Bryan element 
favored) by 41 to 32, and even keeping him from the state 
vice-presidency by three votes. The result was that on 
November 12, 1782, about a month and a half before Justice 
Bryan wrote his New Year's Eve letter, Mr. Wilson and 
a group of sympathetic colleagues were chosen to Congress 
for the first time since the fall of Philadelphia. Within a 
month of that New Year's Eve letter Congressman Wilson, 
in the room across the hall of the State House where Justice 
Bryan sat on the Supreme bench of the State, below the 
one in which President Dickinson and the Council sat, in- 
sisted that national credit must be secured by establishment 
of general funds to be collected by Congress — which was 

251 



252 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

to say, the national government must he given the power 
of the purse, constitutionally, by an amendment to the 
Articles of Confederation. Here was the critical hour of 
the whole history of the new United States, but only pro- 
found students of political science recognized it. Here was 
the entering wedge that was to split the Articles of Con- 
federation and the remodelled Pennsylvania constitution of 
1701. 

The plans of the Wilson group were centered chiefly on 
the national side of them, although Mr. Wilson, himself, 
knew the fight was really a fight against one thing, with 
two sides to it; namely, against a single-chambered govern- 
ment in either state or nation, to secure a real, self-restrained 
government in both. If the single-chambered national 
government was destroyed, the single-chambered state gov- 
ernment could not stand. He was confident, too, that if the 
national government were given the power of the purse, the 
people would see to it, that a body to which it gave taxing 
power should be one to which they were willing to entrust 
their money. This was a strategical year in which to make 
the attack on both constitutions, for it was, 1783, the seventh 
year of the state constitution, which, itself provided, should 
be the one for a process of re-examination and amendment 
through the organ of an elected Council of Censors, who 
should report on what should be done, if anything.^ In a 
certain sense, this septennial body was a constitutional con- 
vention and its sitting, on this occasion, was destined to 
cover nearly a whole year ; so that it was occasion for a 
great opportunity to capture this in the autumn election, 
as they had captured the Assembly already, and also the 
Executive Council. In fact this Council of Censors and 
the Supreme Court were now objects of attack by the 
Wilson party. 

Mr. Wilson, himself, however, was concentrating his 
efforts on the opening wedge to replace the Articles of Con- 
federation, and he succeeded, on April 19, 1783, in secur- 
ing the passage of his resolution of amendment, giving the 

^ For full treatment of the subject of this paragraph see Vol. I, of The 
Life and Writings of James Wilson, by Burton Alva Konkle. 



THE COUNCIL OF CENSORS 253 

power of the purse to the Congress, and its submission to 
the various thirteen state legislatures for adoption. This 
started what might be termed a species of national consti- 
tutional convention in thirteen sections; for, the giving of 
the union the power of direct taxation was the Keystone 
of the whole constitutional question ; or, to change the 
figure, it was the fuse that would utterly destroy the vicious 
weak Articles of Confederation. If they would agree to 
give the nation the power of the purse they would see to it_ 
that the nation had a real government capable and worthy 
to be trusted to handle their money. This was most skill- 
ful sapping and mining in political science: it produced 
thirteen state schools of political and constitutional study. 
Here were the beginnings of the making of a real con- 
stitution of the United States. Here was the final battle 
in the campaign between the two constitutional ideas rep- 
resented on the one hand by Mr. Wilson, who believed in the 
self-restraint of checks and balances in a constitution, and, 
on the other, by Justice Bryan, who believed in concentra- 
tion of power in a single body, the legislature. It was a 
great stake, and nowhere in all the world's history was 
there ever a more strategic constitutional battle than this 
in Pennsylvania. There was the curious phenomenon of 
states — thirteen of them — wanting a concentration of power 
in the national legislature in one body, while eleven of them 
would not have such a thing in their own state government. 
Pennsylvania, under justice Bryan's leadership, wanted it in 
both state and nation, so far as her will had been expressed, 
just as the British people do today and as do a great many 
students of political science. And the Public Debt stood 
facing them as a stern schoolmaster to compel them all to 
most intensive study, one of the first results of which was 
a demand that all states claiming western land surrender 
them to the union to aid in meeting this public obligation ; 
and the peace treaty gave prestige to this demand. And 
then, as if to furnish an object lession in weak state and 
national governments, a mere mob no larger than a company 
appeared before the State House, which contained them 
both, and on June 21, 1783, demanded that the soldiers be 



254 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

paid before any other financial plans ! Mr. Wilson and the 
rest of Congress, stood firm, however, and Philadelphia 
ceased to be the capital of the United States, until this great 
school of political science should result in a real govern- 
ment such as that at which Mr. Wilson aimed. 

While this school of political science is in preparation and 
operation in 1783, let us glance across the hall from Con- 
gress and note through the arches, that, at the April term 
of the Supreme Court, only Chief Justice Thomas McKean, 
LL.D., and Justice George Bryan comprised the bench on 
April 10th and indeed for the whole session until the 26th. 
There were many cases, but they must have been short ones. 
Mr. Lewis had most — thirteen in all. Another Philadel- 
phia lawyer, Levy, had next most, eight. Bankson had 
seven, while Bradford and Sergeant each had a half-dozen. 
Wilson and Yeates had five each and Ingersoll four. Ship- 
pen, Hartley, Ingersoll, Wilcocks, Biddle, Rush, Reed, 
Read, Clymer, Smith, Chambers, Potter, Mifflin and a few 
others made the usual representative list. A special session 
was held August 2, 1783, a short one, in which some rules 
for admission were formulated. These provided that the 
lawyer must have had four years experience as a clerk to a 
well recognized lawyer and one year's practice ; or three 
years as clerk and two years' practice. They were to be 
examined by two appointed for the purpose, who were to 
make exception where the legal study was made after the 
attorney was of age. 

The Qiief Justice and Justice Bryan had not sat at the 
April session of the High Court of Error's and Appeals, 
the session of 16th April, 1783, consisting of Judges Dick- 
inson, Hopkinson, Wynkoop and Miles, before whom 
Sergeant brought three cases, in two of which Wilson was 
for the defense, and in one of which Wilson was colleague 
of Sergeant, and Lewis and Wilcocks for the defense. At 
the June 16th session, however, Justice Bryan and the Chief 
Justice were present at the opening of court, but withdrew 
as they had acted in most of the cases before the court. It 
is notable that every one of the decisions of the Supreme 
Court were affirmed, which spoke well for their fairness 



THE COUNCIL OF CENSORS 255 

and ability. At the September session, however, all of the 
court were present but Judges Atlee and Wynkoop; and it 
is noticeable that the seating of the court, at least according 
to the order of the minutes, gives Judge Hopkinson of the 
Admiralty Court precedence over the Associate Justices of 
the Supreme Court, so that he and Justice Bryan sat next 
each other. The attorneys are Ingersoll, Lewis, Sergeant 
and Wilcocks, as it was a short session. 

Before turning to the campaign for the coming election 
not only of Assembly, but, what was quite as important, 
the septennial Council of Censors, it may be well to note a 
lower court of which the Supreme Court Judges were mem- 
bers, as well as the High Court, namely, the criminal or 
Oyer and Terminer Court. As has been intimated else- 
where, the lack of professional training in the local courts 
over the state made necessary the creation of the Nisi Prius 
Courts, in which Justices of the Supreme Court sat in 
various parts of the state in exceptional civil cases requir- 
ing learning; so also in criminal matters, where so much 
of personal liberty or even life was at stake, the Supreme 
Court Justices sat as a criminal court in each county, some- 
times as a full bench and sometimes in pairs, or three, as 
convenience dictated. Judge Bryan's first appearance on 
the criminal or Oyer and Terminer bench was at Chester 
in April, 1780. He sat at Lancaster, York, and Carlisle in 
May and in Philadelphia in September, while in October 
he was at Easton and the following month at Reading and 
again at Chester. In 1781 his successive terms were at 
Philadelphia, Chester, Lancaster, York, and Philadelphia, 
Chester, Reading, Lancaster, and Doylestown. The year 
1782 found him trying criminal cases, in succession, at 
Philadelphia, Chester, Easton, Reading, Carlisle, Lancaster, 
and Doylestown, followed by Philadelphia, Reading, Lan- 
caster, Chester, and Philadelphia again. It was in this court 
that the Oswald case arose. The year 1783 provided a 
circuit as follows: Philadelphia, Doylestown, Chester, 
Lancaster, York, Carlisle, Reading, and Easton, followed, 
in the autumn, by Chester, Philadelphia, the new Western 
county of Washington and that of Westmoreland, although 



256 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

he was in Philadelphia at the October election. Most of 
these courts were conducted by the Chief Justice and Justice 
Bryan, as both Justices Evans and Atlee were often absent. 
They were the ones, it will be recalled, who sat in the 
Oswald case, and they were by far the ablest judges of the 
court, and very able men besides. 

Likewise before turning to the autumn campaign of 1783, 
it will be well to recall Justice Bryan's relationship to the 
University of Pennsylvania since the mid-summer of 1780, 
where we left him engaged as Treasurer and Trustee in its 
organization, or its reorganization from the status it had as 
the College of Philadelphia. As Treasurer-Trustee, Justice 
Bryan naturally became the chief financier or ways and 
means member, and, as a jurist, was almost always one of 
their two attorneys. Furthermore he was generally on a 
committee to which delicate diplomatic incidents were 
assigned, and he was generally present. For example, in 
September, 1780, he was on the committee to deal with ex- 
Provost William Smith, D.D. ; and was chairman of the 
committee in charge of the Norrington estate and mills, 
which was one of the University resources. In 1781, he 
was one of the University visitors in the second division, 
was on the committee on repairs and that on finances to be 
presented to the Assembly. On September 10th, he was 
given sole control of the wheat basis of financial calculations. 
Of the Trustees, Chief Justice McKean. Judge Hopkinson, 
Justice Bryan, Jonathan B. Smith, Dr. Thos. Bond, Dr. 
Wm. Shippen, Dr. Clarkson, Revs. Farmer, Sproat. Hel- 
muth and White in attendance that month, Rev. Dr. Sproat 
and Justice Bryan were assigned the first serious case of 
insubordination of a student, who, contrary to orders of 
the faculty, included some remarks about Alaj. Andre in 
his commencement oration and so failed to get his degree 
with the rest. They made young Francis Murray wish 
he had not done it, during the months he was without his 
sheepskin. This was a period of much difficulty in re- 
organization of the medical school especially, due partly to 
politics and partly to a feud between Drs. Morgan and 
Shippen. The result was that the University of Pennsyl- 



THE COUNCIL OF CENSORS 257 

vania at Fourth and Arch Streets by May, 1782, had 27 
boys in the Philosophical or Provost's School; 50 in the 
Mathematical School ; 75 in the Latin School ; 92 in the 
English School, and 24 in the German school, not counting 
the Medical or Charity Schools for Boys and for Girls. 
By December, however, the Boys Charity School was re- 
ported with 60. On July 2, 1782, Justice Bryan was made 
chairman of a financial reorganization committee for the 
whole institution. His colleague, Judge Francis Hopkin- 
son designed and prepared a new University seal late in 
that year. The year 1783 was notable for the University's 
lavish distribution of degrees to the French allies and the 
conferring of that of Doctor of Laws on General Washing- 
ton, for which Justice Bryan voted on June 26th of that 
year. 

With these varied activities of this able leader in the 
summer of 1783 in mind, one may now turn to the aggres- 
sive campaign of the early autumn to capture both the As- 
sembly and the Council of Censors. The new rallying 
power about the national bank group, which was leading 
not only in the agitation for the grant of the power of the 
purse to the union and nationalization of western lands, 
but was gaining control in the Assembly and were now 
aiming to capture the Council of Censors too, were drawing 
to them all the old conservative elements that had been 
more or less allied to the Proprietary and Quaker sections ; 
and this so alarmed the Bryan element that, so early as 
June 14, 1783, a mass meeting was held at the State House, 
of which Judge Samuel Miles was chairman, which called 
u]wn all to see to it that no one who deserted the colonies 
in 1775, or since, should be allowed citizenship nor restora- 
tion of estates by law. They saw attack all along the line 
from the single chambered ineffective Articles of Confed- 
eration to the old state constitution, the University and 
Proprietary estates confiscation, the Censors, the Supreme 
Court and the whole Bryan structure. They, in turn, pro- 
posed to capture the Assembly, Council of Censors, and 
Supreme Executive Council and then go for the national 
bank's state charter and pull down the whole proposed Wil- 



258 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

son structure, before it was even complete in its frame- 
work. And it was a keen, close contest. The Assembly was 
captured by the Wilson element and Philadelphia put Judge 
Miles on the Council of Censors, which was very close. 

As this body was the one on which the existence of the 
old constitution was supposed to rest, and the one in which 
Justice Bryan was therefore especially interested, attention 
may be turned to its career. On November 10, 1783, the 
authorized time for them to assemble at the State House, 
they took the lower room, now vacated by Congress. No 
quorum appeared, however, until the 13th, when, of the 26 
members elected — two from each of the thirteen counties — 
19 were present, among them being Judge Miles, Fred. A. 
]\Iuhlenberg, Generals St. Clair and Wayne, Justice John 
Evans, and two vigorous Bryanites from Westmoreland 
county, John Smiley and William Findlay. They organized 
with Muhlenberg as President, Fitzsimons as head of the 
rules committee and Judge Miles as head of the conference 
committee to see the Executive Council. These two men 
headed the main committees on investigation. Mr. Oswald 
was not elected printer, which showed that the Bryanites 
had control of the organization. On December 4th, they 
determined to go into committee of the whole on whether 
amendment of the constitution is desirable ; and it was 
significant that on the same day ex- Provost Dr. Wm. Smith 
asked the restoration of the College of Philadelphia. Ex- 
President Jos. Reed declined to be a member on the 9th, 
because his physician advised his going to Europe. 

By the 30th of December, 1783, the feeling over the 
contested elections in Philadelphia was so great that a big 
petition was received claiming that a mob of soldiers chiefly, 
like that which had tried to intimidate Congress in June 
previously, had so terrorized the people on the 14th of 
October at the voting place, that they could not elect either 
the Assemblymen or Censors they desired. When it came 
to a vote President Muhlenberg headed 14 to 7 in favor of 
the election being lawfully carried out. Messrs. Smiley and 
Findlay were among the dissenters and claimed that out of 
1620 votes 230 seemed to be "stufifed" in, as moderns would 



THE COUxXCIL OF CENSORS 259 

say, 340 voted illegally, — altogether about 440 votes that 
ought not to have been received and that changed the elec- 
tion from what it should be. President Muhlenberg, Gens. 
St. Clair, Wayne and others gave their side. 

On January 2, 1784, came the first test vote on whether 
the old constitution should be revised, 12 to 10 in favor of 
revision. Judge Miles headed the committee to propose 
amendments and on the next day, Saturday, the work was 
to begin ; but the minority brought in new depositions about 
the Philadelphia election, under the management of Mr. 
Samuel Bryan, Justice Bryan's son, "Mr. Bryan, Jr." they 
styled him, who completed these elaborate depositions that 
day. On the 6th the county part of the contention was 
dismissed, which left President Muhlenberg and Gen. 
St. Clair fixed in their seats, but did not settle the question 
regarding Judge Miles and Mr. Fitzsimons for the city. On 
January 7, 1784, Smiley and Findlay making a fight 
against it, the report on changing the constitution was re- 
ceived by a vote of 12 to 10, Miles and Fitzsimons voting 
with the 12; but on the 19th, Monday, when the first para- 
graph, against a single chamber came up, the vote was 12 
to 9, on account of an absence. The question of a single 
executive brought the same vote, as did that on indepen- 
dence of the judiciary, and non-rotation in office. Then 
they began positive recommendations embodying the essen- 
tial features of present day constitution, single executive, 
double legislature, independent judiciary, and the like, 
section by section, with the 12 to 9 majority. The upper 
house was called the Legislative Council. The Smiley- 
Findlay group said that as the constitution proposed that 
two-thirds of the Censors must vote for a call for a Con- 
stitutional Convention to make it legal and the vote was 
never more than 12 to 9, it was illegal, and so was every 
vote taken after the first vote. The other side said they 
didn't vote on a convention, just recommended the changes, 
and they made an appeal to the electorate on that basis. 
Territorially, this division was interesting: Bucks and 
Berks counties and the two new southwestern counties, 
Washington and Westmoreland, with half of Northampton 



260 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

and Lancaster, furnished the Bryanite minority. The ses- 
sion adjourned on January 21, 1784, to June 1st. 

It is interesting to observe that on January 2nd, the 
American Philosophical Society, that purely scientific body 
which somehow had thus far always been a perfect barome- 
ter of political life in the state, elected Benjamin Franklin 
President; Dr. Thos. Bond, Revs. John Ewing and William 
White, vice-Presidents ; Hons. Thomas McKean and George 
Bryan, M. Marbois and Samuel Caldwell, Councillors ; and 
other officers of like tenor, Judge Hopkinson being Treas- 
urer. This was the University group, very largely. 

But, to return to the Council of Censors, the pressure 
against Judge Miles — or Col. Miles, as he was better known 
— was so great that the Assembly on March 5th, passed a 
resolution acquitting him of all charges made against him. 
This became so embarassing that, after the Council had 
been in session a week, on June 8th, he sent in his resigna- 
tion and a new election was ordered, as also one for a de- 
ceased member. There being a dead-lock, nothing was done, 
and on June 17th, they vacated the old Congress room for 
election purposes on Friday the 18th, when the electorate 
chose Justice George Bryan to succeed Col. Miles. ^ This 
result was announced on the 21st and on the 24th, the re- 
doubtable defender of the old constitution was present to 
guide the battle for it in this crisis. His son, Samuel Bryan, 
was made secretary. He was at once added to the committee 
of 18 Nov. 1783, to enquire whether the constitution had 
been preserved inviolate in every part and whether the 
executive and legislative bodies had been faithful to the 
constitution. This gave material for a very pretty contest, 
and on July 2, 1784, the first test vote was taken on the 
case of a delinquent Northumberland county commissioner 
who did not send in tax information, and Justice Bryan — 
or as he was so often called, Mr. Bryan — headed a three- 
fourths majority — 15 to 5! Only Mr. Fitzsimons, Generals 
St. Clair and Wayne and two York and Berks county 

* At this election Mr. Bryan received 350 votes; Chief Justice Thos. 
McKean, 115; Lawyer Wm. Lewis, 12; and W. A. Patterson, an old soldier, 
8; which gave him 215 majority, according to Oswald's Gazetteer of 26th June, 
1784. 



THE COUNCIL OF CENSORS 261 

lawyers, Hartley and Read, were left of the twelve! Justice 
Bryan and the public absolutely transformed them. This 
was modified some from time to time. Death favored them 
also in the return of General James Potter of Northumber- 
land county on July 7th, and on whether he should be added 
to the big committee, it was done 15 to 9. Then on July 16th, 
the old Trustees of the College of Philadelphia asked for 
a repeal of the act disfranchising them on Nov. 27, 1779, 
unlawfully, among them being Lawyer James Wilson. 

On July 21, 1784, a Bryan-Smiley resolution called for 
the original manuscript constitution. Much time was given 
to an efifort to punish the Northumberland commissioners. 
Justice Bryan paved the way for operations by a vote of 
16 to 4 that present members of the government were sub- 
ject to this investigation as well as past ones. This was 
done on August 5th the day they began to consider the big 
committee's report, which, it is interesting to note, was 
printed by Editor Bailey of the Freeman. The thorough- 
ness of the plans for investigation of all departments of 
government was noticeable. Justice Bryan's hand was 
quite in evidence. He won a test vote on the 13th by 11 
to 10. A committee found there were 19 errors in the 
printing of the constitution. Then, on the 16th of August 
the Bryanites, by a vote of 14 to 9 substituted the new 
report, postponing the old one of January, but really dis- 
carding it. By a similar majority Justice Bryan succeeded 
in making several amendments, nearly all of them limiting 
the power of the Assembly after the manner of a bill of 
rights. Many of these were based upon abuses of the 
General Assembly since and including 1781, and one of 
these was their action on the famous Wilson measure of 
April 18, 1783, authorizing the delegates to agree to give 
Congress the power of the purse — all done in seven days. 
It looked as if someone, possibly Justice Bryan himself — 
probably, indeed — had kept a list of unconstitutional acts 
day by day ever since 1781, and each of these were now 
sifted to the bottom. For example, the incorporation of the 
national bank April 1, 1782, acknowledged the right of 
Congress to incorporate — an unconstitutional thing, says 



262 BRYAN AXD PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

the new report. The opposition tried to have the act of 
confiscation of the College of Philadelphia declared uncon- 
stitutional, but Justice Bryan secured a vote of 13 to 9 
against it, both sides putting on the minutes their formal 
reasons for their course. The reasons of the 13 are un- 
doubtedly the work of Justice Bryan and they furnish one 
of the best illustrations of his ability as a lawyer, a writer, 
a politician, a patriot and man of wide information. He 
cites the University of Oxford in the time of William III 
as an example of institutional disaffection. "For it is plain," 
the report continues, "that this evil can only be cured by 
law, which shall pass through all their charters. Nay, at 
this rate, should the Bank of North America, or any other 
corporation, become a monster of weight and influence, and 
be able to counteract and over-rule our legislative proceed- 
ings, nothing less than a general rising of the people would 

be equal to the exigence. We consider these imperii 

in imperio, these governments within the government of the 
state, holding common estates of large value, and exercis- 
ing the power of making bye-laws, as against the spirit and 
policy of democracy, and only to be endured in order to 
obtain advantages which may greatly counterbalance the 
inconveniences and dangers which accompany them. In 
Pennsylvania we have not a sole executive ofificer of per- 
manency and weight, sufficient to restrain, and whose in- 
terest it is to keep those communities in awe ; they may, 
therefore, gradually produce an indirect, yet firm aristocracy 
over the state, before we be aware of the mischief."^ 

This was not only Censor criticism but also political 
notice of what the national bank might expect from the 
next house, if the Bryanites were in control. General 
Wayne brought up the constitutionality of the test oaths, 
but Mr. Bryan defeated it by a vote of 15 to 8, on August 
30th. On the same day the full report was adopted and the 
Bryan element gave more reasons for supporting it, one 
of which was that they opposed assumption of executive 
and judicial powers by the legislature, such as had occurred 

^Journal of the Council of Censors, p. 131. 



THE COUNCIL OF CENSORS 263 

during more than seven years past, but it was designed to 
entrench the old constitution more immovably than ever. 

They then took up the subject of taxes and unconstitu- 
tional lav^s that ought to be repealed, as v^^ell as a host of 
miscellaneous subjects. The executive branch was can- 
vassed with the same tiioroughness, but the current Assem- 
bly refused ^o send its own records. On September 23, 
1784, it was shown that over 18,000 petitioners had appealed 
against the course of the first session of the Council of 
Censors in asking a convention. Generals St. Clair and 
Wayne tried to get a request that the Assembly impeach 
all of the Council of Safety of 1777, which included Justice 
Bryan, but, without his vote it was beaten by 11 to 8. The 
minutes were to be published by Secretary Samuel Bryan 
under the direction of his father and Mr. Hart, and be 
distributed by them. The public address, also undoubtedly 
the work of Justice Bryan, was adopted by the party vote 
of 12 to 9, and the 25th of September, 1784, nearly a year 
since the Council of Censors' first meeting, they adjourned. 

The success of Justice Bryan's leadership meant another 
seven years' lease of life to the old constitution, and it so 
aroused that party that it rose to new vigor. Oswald's 
Gazetteer vented its rage even more on the Constitutionalist 
leader than he did before, calling him the old "Midwife" 
that brought forth the constitution and had "taken the lead 
and ascendency among the Censors." It was of no avail, 
for at the October (1784) election it is sufficient to state 
that an Assembly was chosen which elected John Bayard. 
Speaker, and Samuel Bryan, Clerk. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

The Great Contest 

1784 

The two campaigns in one of the greatest and most 
picturesque and significant contests in American history, 
were now on in full force. The Bryan element now began 
to see the meaning of the Wilson plans through the national 
bank group and the great constitutional schools that were 
now discussing the granting of the power of the purse to 
Congress. They saw the Bank of North America as the 
Keystone in the new state and national arch, and they began 
systematic effort to pull that Keystone out. 

First they issued proposals for a new "Bank of Pennsyl- 
vania" on January 19, 1784, as soon as they saw what the 
plan of that first session of the Council of Censors was, in 
its attack on the old constitution, and compelled the national 
bank to issue large blocks of stock to head it off. By Febru- 
ary 10th, however, they had organized and applied to the 
Assembly for a charter ; furthermore they instigated similar 
banks among their friends in other states. The Bank of 
North America fought them in a hearing on March 2nd, 
and 3rd, in which Mr. Wilson was pitted against Ingersoll, 
Bradford and Sergeant, on the plea of public credit being 
endangered, and, by the 16th, the request for the charter 
was withdrawn. This, probably more than anything else, 
was what brought Justice Bryan into the Council of Cen- 
sors in April, and his success during the rest of the year 
and in the next October election bode ill for the national 
bank, for it was plain the new Assembly of 1784—5 would 
do things to that institution. It was now to be war to a 
finish. 

Before entering upon that subject, however, it will be 
well to observe some changes in the Supreme Court. For 

264 



CONTEST OF 1784 265 

the first time since the new order, death removed the red 
robes of office from a member of this bench on December 
11, 1783, in the passing of Justice John Evans, "third 
justice," as he had been described. It is not uncommon for 
a court to have a Justice of such recognized merit as to be 
colloquially regarded as the "Chief Justice," and Justice 
Bryan, had no McKean been on the bench, would have 
readily furnished an example of that kind. He was com- 
monly recognized as next to McKean in ability even if he 
was "Fourth Justice." The death of Justice Evans, in any 
court of our own day, would have advanced Justice Bryan 
to the place of "Third Justice," but at this particular time, 
when the government was crowing over the results of the 
first session of the Council of Censors and a brother of the 
aggressive friend of James Wilson, Dr. Benjamin Rush, 
namely, Jacob Rush, was appointed to the vacancy, they 
saw to it that he succeeded to the place of "Third Justice," 
leaving Justice Bryan in his old status and with no increased 
friendship for Justice Rush. Consequently, to keep the 
peace, the Chief Justice, when occasion arose, as in Nisi 
Prius or criminal sessions, when the court divided, the Chief 
Justice would sometimes go with Justice Bryan and again 
with Justice Rush. For example, at the March and April 
sessions of the Oyer and Terminer Courts at Doylestown 
and Philadelphia it was the former, while at the Chester, 
Lancaster, York, Carlisle, Reading and June Philadelphia 
sessions, the Chief Justice had Justice Rush beside him. 
The autumn sessions, successively at Philadelphia, Doyles- 
town, Chester, Easton and Reading, 1784, were held by the 
Chief Justice and Justice Bryan. 

His service in the High Court of Errors and Appeals 
during 1784 began in the arched room of the State House 
on April 6th, when Chief Justice McKean, Judge Francis 
Hopkinson, Justice Bryan and Judge Miles constituted the 
bench, but they had no business and adjourned to the 28th 
when it embraced President Dickinson, Chief Justice Mc- 
Kean, Judge Hopkinson, Justice Rush and Justice Bryan. 
The case before them being from the Admiralty Court 
Judge Hopkinson withdrew, and the rest listened to Mr. 



266 BRYAN AXD PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Ingersoll and Mr. Bradford, and affirmed the Admiralty 
decree. In June Judge Bryan was not present. At the 
September 20th term President Dickinson, Chief Justice 
McKean, Judge Hopkinson, Justices Rush and Bryan and 
Judge Wynkoop Hstened to James Wilson and Mr. Inger- 
soll, and Mr. Sergeant, and on the 21st received Judge 
Edward Shippen, under commission of September 17th, in 
place of Judge Miles; but in one case the Chief Justice and 
Justice Bryan withdrew. They did also on the 22nd when 
the rest listened to Messrs. Lewis, Ingersoll and Bradford, 
and on the 23rd the absent Justices were affirmed. On the 
25th a full court sat, until Judge Hopkinson withdrew, and 
the rest listened to Messrs. Wilcocks and Sergeant; while 
on the 28th all were present (excepting Atlee always, as he 
was not in the court this year up to this date) except Judge 
Hopkinson. Justice Atlee was present on October 5th, as 
were all the rest except the President and Justice Rush. 
i\Ir. Lewis was the only counsellor. Everybody was pres- 
ent on the 6th except Justice Rush, but during a case pre- 
sented by Air. Wilson the Supreme Court Justices withdrew, 
returning again for one presented by Gouverneur Morris, 
when Judge Hopkinson withdrew. All the Supreme Court 
members were absent on the 7th and 8th, and on the 11th 
only Atlee and Rush were absent, as also on the 18th. There 
■was but little business. 

With all these activities Justice Bryan did not neglect 
his work as Treasurer and Trustee of the University dur- 
ing 1784. Encouraged by the first session Censors' report 
in January, Judge Hopkinson nominated James Wilson for 
a vacancy on the board, while ]\Ir. Bryan nominated Rev. 
Rogers, but neither one was finally chosen, as Mr. Brad- 
ford's nominee, former Speaker John Bayard, won. By 
March 8th the University was in excellent condition, the 
Chief Justice reporting that the Philosophical School had 
48; the Medical School 60; the M:athematical School, 43; 
the Latin School, 64; the German School, 30; the English 
School, 66; the Boys' Charity School, 62; and the Girls' 
Qiarity School, 29; a total of 402. The Chief Justice was 
made auditor of the Treasurer's accounts. On March 15th, 



CONTEST OF 1784 267 

Justice Bryan was made Chairman of a financial commit- 
tee, and on April 15th he nominated Thomas Mifflin to take 
the late Dr. Bond's place on the board. As an instance of 
preparation for the Wilson element to win back the College 
property, in August it was ordered that the Treasurer be 
elected annually in December, and on September 11th, came 
notice from the Assembly that they should appoint counsel 
to defend themselves, McKean, Moore and Bayard being 
chosen. On October 16th, they considered the possibility 
of Norrington Farms as a future site of the University, and 
on December 8th, Justice Bryan was re-elected Treasurer 
by a majority. Justice Bryan was present at nearly every 
meeting. 

Three days before the Council of Censors, led by Justice 
Bryan, made its famous report, f/om the old Congress 
room, the Assembly in the room above, with a very un- 
certain majority started to restore the College property, but 
lease the University with the property since acquired, and 
seemed to be able to do so by a vote of 28 to 25, on ordering 
a bill drawn. This enabled them on the following day to take 
up a^ revision of the test laws which was a very delicate sub- 
ject, so near election, when its design was to remove dis- 
franchisement of a considerable number. It was all a part 
of the great contest. On the 27th of September by a vote 
of 28 to 23 an emission and loan office bill covering £50,000 
was referred to the next Assembly, but on the 28th, when a 
vote was taken on the test law revision, it was 25 to 25, and 
as Speaker Gray Vas casting the affirmative lot, 19 members 
rushed out of the hall and down stairs thus breaking up 
a quorum, and — the Assembly itself! The Bryan element, 
seeing the success of the Council of Censors, and thinking 
if the College property was restored, and the test laws re- 
vised, the next thing would be restoration of Proprietary 
estates, determined to stop it at all hazards. 

The opposition were enraged beyond bounds. Indeed 
from the time Justice Bryan, in October, 1783, was men- 
tioned as a Censor, until now, the public attacks upon him 
in the press, especially in the Gazette, and also in the 
Ga::.cttccr, were of the most victriolic character. "Z" on 



268 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

October 8, 1783, in a public letter "To George Bryan, Esq.", 
etc., charged him with almost everything even to smug- 
gling; while on September 1, 1784, after the Censors' report 
was issued, and for several issues thereafter, "A Citizen of 
Pennsylvania" — no doubt the same pen — in a public letter 
"To George Bryan, Esq., Censor-General of Pennsylvania," 
was even less restrained. This writer even makes the fan- 
tastic claim that Justice Bryan in 1776, tried to make the 
legislature a double chamber and hauled Judge George Ross 
out of bed at midnight to influence him in that direction! 
He charges him with being the father of the project to 
remove the state capital to the Susquehanna river — calls it 
his "darling project" — and the organization of new counties 
a means of holding and increasing his following. Never in 
newspaper polemics were two men more mud-bespattered 
in the most reckless language than were George Bryan and 
James Wilson, the two chief leaders on each side in this 
great contest. Justice Bryan did not openly, at least, defend 
himself, and James Wilson did so but once, and that was 
for public reasons. Both were skilful and profound public 
leaders, and had an implicit following. The one believed 
in the centralized principles of a single chambered legis- 
lature, much as the British and many political scientists do 
today; while the other stood for the political science repre- 
sented by the state and nation in America. One led the 
country party and a certain part of the city, while the other 
led the more conservative element in favor of the checks 
and balances system. The one stood for the old state con- 
stitution and the Articles of Confederation and the other 
for a new state and national constitution. Indeed, Justice 
Bryan and his followers represented the attitude of those 
who today fear a League of Nations, while Mr. Wilson's 
position was like those who desire not merely a League, 
but a real international government. And this terrific con- 
test involved not only Pennsylvania, but all of the states, 
and the financial system of the Confederation, centering in 
the Bank of North America. 

Plenty of defenders of Justice Bryan arose. For ex- 
ample, "Junius," in the Freemen's Journal, who compared 



CONTEST OF 1784 269 

him to Cincinnatus, or "Plebeian" whom the doughty Bryan 
reminded of the best days of the Roman Consul, stating 
that it was the glory of him and his associates that they 
went out of office poor. It remained for Judge Hopkinson, 
however, under the pen-name of "Projector" to interpret 
Justice Bryan's long defense of the old constitution, under 
both its old and new forms, as the desire to immortalize 
himself as it author or at least its preserver. For when, 
the October election, following the disruption of the As- 
sembly by the precipitate departure of the Bryan element, 
brought that element back into control of the Assembly and 
so saved the constitution for at least another seven years, 
the whimsical artist-jurist, in the issue of the Pennsylvania 
Gazette of November 24, 1784, announced the discovery or 
invention of a mode of applying the art of the surveyor to 
portraiture. He showed how a man, wishing to make his 
will might, deed his land in such specifications as would, 
forever, have his portrait in its outlines. He gave detailed 
measurements, of which only the external boundaries need 
be given, for illustration : 

"From an assumed point 

"A, run a line S. 67 deg. 30 min. W. 52 perches to a 
point 

"B, thence N. 5 deg. W. 64 per. to 

"C, thence 7 deg. W. 36 per. to 

"D, thence due W. 60 per. to 

"E, thence N. 48 deg. E. 110 per. to 

"F, thence N. 13 deg. E. 60 per. to 

"G, thence N. 45 deg. E. 190 per. to 

"H, thence N. 77 deg. E. 108 per. to 

"I, thence S. 5 deg. W. 240 per. to 

"K, thence the same course 120 per. to 

"L, thence S. 78 deg. W. 180 per. to 

"M, thence 30 perches to the place of beginning." 

These, drawn 100 perches to the inch, would make a 
facial portrait — which, of course, everybody would recog- 
nize as his High Court colleague. Justice Bryan, in cartoon. 



270 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

No drawing accompanied it in the Gazette, but when his 
essays were pubHshed some years later, he developed the 
article more and actually drew out the specifications into 
a cartoon of Justice Bryan, that even his own relatives 
acknowledged was a most excellent likeness, allowing for 
the humor of a cartoon/ The cartoon was designed to show 
that Justice Bryan was wishing to leave his political portrait 
in the constitution of Pennsylvania, which he had so 
doughtily defended under its old form and for whose new 
form he was responsible, and had now given it a new lease 
of life for at least another seven years. 

And the October election was truly a land-slide, for 
when the Assembly met in November and elected John 
Bayard, Speaker, and Samuel Bryan, clerk, the political 
line-up was shown on November 12, 1784, to be 43 to 15, 
in favor of the constitution and the Censors' report! The 
Bank of North America, the College of Philadelphia and 
the entire Wilson program were all in a most hopeless 
plight apparently, with the national bank as the chief one 
marked for decapitation. That big majority varied but 
slightly on all party questions, and on the 25th of the month, 
a committee was ordered to bring in a report on the Cen- 
sors' recommendations. Various features of that report 
were acted upon, but the event of most moment was the 
paper money issue and the Bank of North America being 
forced to accept it. Justice Bryan said the issue was whether 
the currency should have state support or bank support, 
meaning of course that he proposed the former and not 
the latter. Then, on March 21, 1785, came the attack on 



' There being no name mentioned in either of the articles, and it was 
certain that Judge Hopkinson, in 1784, would see to it that someone drew 
the speciiications and passed it around among contemporaries who would 
instantly recognize it, there was a long period when the identity of the cartoon 
was wholly lost — nearly a hundred years indeed; for the present writer on the 
occasion of the presentation of a portrait of Justice Atlee to the Supreme Court 
rooms at Philadelphia in 1903, or thereabouts, asked Justice Mitchell if he 
had ever seen or heard of a portrait of Justice Bryan. He replied that some 
twenty years before he was in Charleston, S. C, and met United States 
District Judge George S. Bryan, who assured him that there was an excellent 
cartoon portrait in Francis Hopkinson's MSS. at the American Philosophical 
Society, in an article on Surveying as Applied to Portraiture. Justice Mitchell 
had been unable to find it, but the present writer was more successful not only 
in finding it in MSS., but also in identifying it in the published Essays, in 
which the article and the cut were in separate volumes, with no mark of 
connection. The cartoon was published by the present writer in his Life 
and Times of Thomas Smith, in 1904, and it is reproduced here. 




Cartoon of Justice Bryan 

by Judge Francis Hopkinson in Hopkinson MSS. at 

The American Philosophical Society 



CONTEST OF 1784 271 

the bank's state charter, to understand which, one must re- 
call that the Congressional charter which made it the na- 
tional bank was questioned as to the power of Congress to 
give it, a question which made the bank seek a state charter 
as well, in the several states. A Chester county petition 
headed numerous others, on that date, demanding that the 
Pennsylvania charter be repealed, which course, under the 
questioned value of the Congressional charter, was designed 
to destroy it entirely, as they did not believe a charter in 
another state, like the one this bank had in Massachusetts, 
would be legal. The prestige of the bank, nationally and 
internationally, was so great that nothing happened for a 
time, and soon after April 4th, when this bill was reported 
out for publication and public consideration, the Assembly 
refused the bank a hearing and adjourned. Mr. Wilson 
then made a public defense of the bank's national charter 
and also a plea for the State charter in a most able public 
pamphlet, the pioneer in American constitutional law. 

On March 29, 1785, Justice Bryan wrote Justice Atlee 
about the Judge's salary bill, and other things : "This is 
well you say;" he writes, "but the paper money! There's 
the rub! It has too been damned by the Council before its 
appearance. Indeed there is reason to doubt ; there is 
ground of apprehension. However, the constant activity of 
the bills by the payment of taxes of various kinds will stand 
instead of other supports, especially if the country people 
would pay the arrears. By the interest and weight of the 
public creditors it will derive some help ; and the £50,000 
loan money will I trust be deferred ; if it come out at all. 

The general dislike of the bank has at length come 

to a point. Petitions, mostly from the country, have come 
in and been received with correspondent ideas. Never did I 
see anything receive such favor. And those who are nega- 
tive seem faint. Forty-one were for and nineteen against 
bringing in a bill to repeal the incorporating act. This affair 
has not been warded off by any prudence on the part of 
the bank. The opposition to the second bank, proposed in 
March, 1784, the opposition that was recently made to the 
funding bill &c., were all foolish interference and provoca- 



272 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

tions. Yet the repeal, if deferred four months, will dis- 
tress our merchants much. They can scarcely bring their 
enlarged affairs within compass. Indeed all discounts from 
this time must be small. "^ 

On June 23, 1785, he again writes, among other things: 
"Dr. Jackson informs me that our negotiators in Europe 
have not been able to form a treaty of Commerce, save 
with his Holiness, the Pope. This prince actually solicited 
it by his nuncio at Paris, and is so just as to ask it on the 
foundation of perfect reciprocity. Congress have named 
Commissioners to examine the accounts of the late Super- 
intendent of Finance [Robert Morris], which are printed 
in a folio. Our Comptroller General has been urging him 
to account with the State and has actually charged him in 
a statement 48,000 Dollars ballance, whereas R. M. says 
he owes nothing. Council have approved of this and Mr. 
Morris is reduced to appeal to the Supreme Court in 20 
days or the charge will be fixed." "Mr. Morris," he adds, 
"can not let go his favorite the bank. It is said and I be- 
lieve with truth, that a scheme of a new bank in the name 
of R. M. & Co. is in forwardness. Meanwhile he and his 
friends continue their opposition to the new bills of credit, 
which pass, however, with most people. The sums due the 
bank oblige the merchants to sell their goods at vendue 
for specie. In short the contention will be whether our 
paper credit shall be that of a bank or the public." "We 
have had a town-meeting," he continues, "concerning the 
ill state of trade and the British regulations. The doings 
of it are in the prints. Mr. Ingersoll has acquired great 
popularity by presiding at it. In general people are pretty 
well satisfied at the event. Mr. Morris' friends, fearing 
something they might not like, would issue, opposed it, and 
have rather suffered thereby with the people. They would 
have gotten credit and advantage by promoting it." "Di- 
verse of our attainted Tories have latterly returned. . . . 
Mr. McClane moved in Council yesterday that they be taken 
up and imprisoned. . . . The Gov. of S. Carolina 
sometime last winter directed this to be done in that State. 

' Atlee Papers, Congressional Library. 



CONTEST OF 1784 273 

• Letters just received from Kentucky assert that 

within three or four days the settlers would renounce Vir- 
ginia, and that an experiment was soon to be tried whether 
the Spaniards would refuse them tobacco &c. passage to Sea, 
for if they did, a passage would be found before long." 
After referring to some bankruptcies, he says: "No 
measures have been taken to finish the treaty with the 
Indians, all of whom were not present last winter, but an 
order has been passed in Congress to purchase more of 
their territory. I view this as needless as well as mis- 
chievous. The Indians may pinch themselves of hunting 
grounds and the people would, in such case, spread sparsely 
and so as to be exposed ; and would get out of the reach of 
government. The jealousy of Spain would be carried to 
the extreme — perhaps the Indians might be employed to 

restrain our progress into the wilderness. Congress 

are upon the subject of a mint. The making of copper 
money seems to be expedient to stop the importation of 
counterfeit half-pence from England. ... I hope you 
will be in town before the W^ July when the Court of Errors 
sits. We hold a Court of Oyer & Term, here some days be- 
fore the 11*^, having five or six charged capitally." 

The Assembly yielded under the force of Mr. Wilson's 
pamphlet on the Bank of North America, and on September 
5, 1785, heard Mr. Wilson for the bank and Mr. Sergeant 
for the petitioners against it. The latter compared the na- 
tional bank to that of England which was a government 
of aristocracy and where a bank controlled it always would 
be. He said this bank was bleeding the country to death. 
"Away with it — do not deliberate, but destroy it at once!" 
he cried. "Like Aaron's rod the bank swallows up all other 
paper." "There is no other way of up-holding the public 
credit but by demolishing the bank ; therefore I say demolish 
it. We are not bound by any terms made by Congress — 
Congress are our creatures!" On the 13th they did de- 
molish the Pennsylvania charter of the bank by a vote of 
47 to 12. 

This was a blow to the bank, indeed, but it was an equal 
l)low to the Bryan party in that the effect upon public credit 



274 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

caused a reaction in the October (1785) election and men 
like Wayne, Morris, Clymer, and Mifflin were among those 
returned. The result was that although Justice Bryan's 
son, Samuel, was again elected Clerk of the Assembly, pre- 
sumably because he must have been a very able clerk, 
General Mifflin was made Speaker, and at the election of 
President of the Council, Dr. Benjamin Franklin was made 
successor to President Dickinson. Justice Bryan was out 
on the western circuit, but his son, Samuel, wrote him an 
account of it about November 1, 1785. "Pursuant to the 
advice of friends," he writes, "with a view to serve the 
constitutional interest; not with any hope of succeeding, 
I attended in my place as Clerk on Monday; and if I had 
before entertained any hopes, the appearance the first day 
must have destroyed them; for out of 36 members, who 
attended, the Republican party [Wilson's] counted 25. All 
the York members but 2 were in and those came next day. 
On Tuesday there wanted but 2 of a House. On this day 
the 4 Cumberland members appeared, but fortunately, as 
the event proved, did not bring their return ; 2 of them 
asked the Sherifif for it (who it seems erroneously sup- 
posed himself the returning officer and had possession of 
it), he told them it was not quite ready, but advised them 
to proceed, as it would be in Philadelphia almost as soon 
as they would, for Counsellor Woods would set ofif the next 
morning; as the return must have been as complete when 
the Judges of Election closed it as ever it would be, this 
circumstance augured design. Wednesday morning Mr. 
Robinson's mother died, which prevented a house, there 
being but 49 without him, they adjourned till 3, afternoon; 
in this recess Mr. Smilie came to town, which made a 
quorum without Mr. Robinson. Mr. Woods, with the Cum- 
berland return, had not arrived and the loss of 4 men was 
great. We were now in a critical situation; manouver was 
now recurred to : 2 members did not attend, which prevented 
a house. In the course of that evening and the next morn- 
ing, 7 of our western friends came in, and, to crown all, 
Mr. Woods brought the Cumberland return : This gave us 
an accession of 11 votes. Thursday morning [they] formed 



CONTEST OF 1784 275 

a house and proceeded to the choice of Speaker and Clerk, 
&c. As we had no one quahfied to act as Speaker, but such 
as would have been too great a loss to us [to] spare from 
the floor, we run Genl. Mifflin; he, from an apprehension 
of our not being able to carry him, had declined the day 
before, but seeing us muster so strong, he consented after 
being pressed to serve. The Republican party pushed 
Geo. Clymer; the poll stood 33 for Mifflin, 29 for Clymer 
and 1 for Wayne. The vote for Clerk stood 33 for myself 
and 30 for Mr. Lloyd. The other party were confident to 
the last moment of carrying the Speaker and Clerk; even 
after the loss of the Speaker, they supposed that several 
who voted for Mifflin would vote against me; their dis- 
appointment was proportionate. The gallery had been filled 
from Alonday by the Republican party ; near 200 were con- 
stantly there, and, till Thursday, not one of our friends. 
This was a proof of the public opinion. The Northumber- 
land return, I am persuaded, from the circumstances at- 
tending it, will be decided in favor of the 3 old members. 
There are besides these, 3 that are in contest; but [9 (?)] 
now absent, of them we have 5 or 6, one of ours we expect 

this evening." "It is a glorious triumph after such 

great defeats and consequent insults in the lower parts of the 
State; much sweeter than if we had known of it sooner, 
as it gave the other party time to expose their views and 
exult in the extravagant manner they did." 

On the 3rd, he again wrote : "My former letter gave 
you the state of things here at the time of the organization 
of the House; since then little important has occurred in 

the House. We had expected a warm contest about 

the choice of the Vice-President; the Republican party had 
Mr. Hill in view and seemed to have it much at heart. We 
deemed the choice to be more important, as Dr. Franklin, 
from his great age and consequent infirmity, will probably 
attend Council but seldom, and therefore the Vice-President 
would be the active efficient officer. The majority we ap- 
peared to have, by the choice of Speaker and Clerk, did not 
discourage our opponents from the attempt, for they had 
2 or 3 majority in Council. This being the situation, they 



276 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

thought it their interest to go into the election as soon as 
could be done, before any more arrivals from the westward, 
as most of those expected would be inimical to them. On 
Friday it was proposed in the House to instruct a com- 
mittee, which had been appointed for another purpose, to 
confer with the Council respecting the time and place of 
choosing a President, &c. Our idea was that the election 
would have been the following week, especially as some 
members of the other party spoke warmly against the 
measure 'till a set of rules had been reported and adopted 
by the House. However, at 5 o'clock in the afternoon of 
the same day, we found Council had settled everything for 
the election to be the next day at 11 o'clock A. M. The 
Officers of Government, Militia &c., &c., were all sum- 
moned to attend the ceremony. What made the matter look 
the more like design and manouver was that the members 
of Council of our party, who attended in Council, heard 
nothing of it formally, no motion being, no order publicly 
adopted. Mr. McLem overheard a whisper. The advan- 
tages to be gained by this covert and precipitate proceeding 
were these, I suppose: first, they judged a concurrent vote 
of the House and Council would, in the, then, present state 
of the members in town, give them a majority. Secondly, 
that the Constitutionalists might not be agreed upon their 
man. But an incident happened on Friday evening that 
deranged all their plans and made their manouver useless ; 
2 of the western skunks arrived and report added a third ; 
this was a serious event and not to be slighted. It induced 
them to call a cabinet Council, where it was determined to 
acquiesce in the appointment of Captain Biddle, as it would 
be of ill consequence to experience a third public defeat, 
which the accession of the 3 votes to their enemies made 
too probable to run the risque of. 

"Yesterday the double returns and papers respecting 
them were, on motion, read, when Mr. Whitehill made a 
motion which had been previously prepared in writing, for 
the purpose of procuring from Northumberland County, 
by a messenger sent there, all the documents relating to 
the election. The situation of this matter is nearly this : 



CONTEST OF 1784 277 

the 3 old members had 8 votes more than Maclay and others, 
but the Maclay Judges, looking over the list of voter's 
names in the other district and the tally papers, found that 
the ballots exceeded the names 10; this was the cause of 
the double return. But to obviate this apparent deficiency, 
the Judges, of the district where it happened, have attested 
that 12 of the inspectors and clerks voted after all others 
had done, and, not thinking it material, omitted to enter 
their names ; in addition to this the depositions of 5 persons 
are come to hand, who voted and whose names are omited ; 
and it is said 4 or 5 more will be procured. 

"Mr. Whitehill's motion was strenuously opposed, upon 
the ground that the business was of so complicated a nature 
that the House could not, on special motion, adopt the 
proper mode of coming to a dicision on it ; that the business 
ought, in the first instance, to be referred to a committee. 
A great deal of finesse was practiced, but we had the su- 
periority in argument, and after a long and well supported 
debate on both sides, the question was carried against the 
commitment, some of our people, not seeing the tendency of 
the motion, supposing either mode would answer equally, 
voted for the commitment, yet we had a majority of 34 
against 32. Our opponents were much impressed at the 
loss of this question. 

"Judge Hopkinson has again petitioned this House to 
rectify the error he alledges to have happened in the law 
instituting the Court of Admiralty sessions. The petition 
was read the second time today and referred to Mr. G. 
Clymer, Mr. Hannum and Mr. Hubley. Some time had 
passed, when Mr. Fitzsimons moved that the committee be 
instructed to bring in a bill defining and establishing the 
jurisdiction of that court and to repeal all the former laws: 
this was opposed by Smiley, Whitehill and Finley &c. as 
precipitate; that the fact was not yet ascertained that any 
error had taken place ; that, even allowing it to be the case, 
the House ought to be satisfied of the propriety of making 
the alteration requested. Fitzsimons, Gen. Wayne, Geo. 
Qymer, Hannum &c. urged it vehemently. The question 



278 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

being put, there appeared but 19 for it. This was a sensible 
mortification. 

"Genl. Mifiiin makes an excellent Speaker; he preserves 
the most perfect order and decorum; even Genl. Wayne is 
obliged to submit, not a whisper or shifting of places dur- 
ing debate or while business is going on, The 

family are all well. I remain, Yours Affection- 
ately, Saml. Bryan." 

Justice Bryan's son, Arthur, aged twenty-four, also 
wrote him his version of it on the same day: "You have 
already heard of Sam'l getting re-instated, notwithstanding 
the ungenerous attempts of many to put him out : the votes 
stood 33 Sam & 30 Lloyd. The Constitutionalists also 
carried the Speaker 33 to 29 in favor of Mr. Mifflin & 
against G. Clymer. There was 1 for Genl. Wayne, so that 
G. Clymer must have voted for himself. General Mifflin 
makes a most excellent Speaker. It was feared at first that 
the best orators would be among the Aristocratists, but we 
are agreeably surprised to find the contrary : we have there- 
fore the best advocates, the greatest numbers & justices 
on our side. 

"The affair of Northumberland election came on yester- 
day. Mr. Whitehill moved to have the papers sent for; the 
others could not oppose in a direct manner a thing so ob- 
viously necessary, but strove to waste time. Accordingly 
Mr. Hannum moved to have the papers then in the House 
committed. Every man they had that could speak did his 
utmost ; their argument was plausible : they said but a few 
hours would be lost. Mr. Finlay made the most animated, 
ingenious speech I ever heard. The house divided : yeas 
for committing 32; against it, 34. Amongst the former 
were many of our friends, such as Mr. Luts, Mr. Lincoln 
[Abraham 1st], Mr. Will, &, I believe, Mr. Robert Brown. 
General Irwin is as staunch as ]Mr. Whitehill. 

"The ll*'^ inst. is fixed for electing Delegates; some of 
the Constitu[tionali]sts wished it for tomorrow, but were 
easy about it. Mr. Fitzsimons moved to have it on the 
11*^ & carried by a very small majority. We thought no 
more about it, but seeing the exultation of the others, out of 



CONTEST OF 1784 279 

doors, of having gained some great point, we judged it could 

be nothing else but the above. This day a motion 

was made to form a committee to bring in a bill to repeal 
every act or law about the Judge of the Admiralty — to give 
him new powers, &c. &c. Yeas about 25; Nays, 40. 
My mother & brothers and sisters long for your re- 
turn from the very rainy journey you are on. I 

remain your most affectionate son, Arthur Bryan. "^ 

It was on November 23, 1785, however, before a real 
test of strength appeared, and that was on the proposal 
to revise the test oath laws, and the vote showed 42 to 23 
in favor of revision. But this attack on the keystone of 
the situation, the bank, was also, as it was intended to be, 
a blow against the Wilson resolution, of April 18, 1783, 
which had now been before the legislature for over two 
years, designed to give Congress the power of the purse, 
was so great that its friends began to be impatient at the 
apparent slowness with which it approached a conclusion. 
This led Congress, now in New York, on July 11, 1785, to 
call for a report of progress; whereupon it was found that 
it had been adopted in whole or in part by eleven states! 
This- showed an overwhelming result of Mr. Wilson's pro- 
posal to give the union the power of the purse. It was this 
that precipitated action against the bank and also encouraged 
the bank group to fight for the October election of Assembly 
and restoration of their charter. This showed the great 
contest now to be nation-wide, and Justice Bryan must have 
recognized the menace of this national tide that threatened 
to engulf the old constitution of Pennsylvania; for the men 
who would give the union the power of the purse would 
give it a constitution with checks and balances ; and, if they 
did, then the principle of checks and balances would replace 
those of the old constitution of 1701-1776, for which he 
had given so much of his life. The Wilson schools of 
nationalism in the thirteen legislatures and in the Congres- 
sional one were the source of that rising tide.^ And these 



''■ Bryan Papers, Hist Soc. of Pa. 

* For full treatment of this great theme see The Life and Writings of 
James Wilson, Vol. 1, by Burton Alva Konkle. 



280 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

reports of progress gave encouragement to all those every- 
where who had called for a national constitutional con- 
vention, and even to those who were satisfied merely with 
the Wilson amendment and the accompanying commercial 
one of 1784. New reports were rapidly called for during 
the winter of 1785-6: one on February 15, 1786, showed 
that Delaware and North Carolina had accepted in full, the 
one conditional on unanimity and the other. North Carolina, 
unconditionally. Six States had complied as far as the com- 
mercial one of 1784 was concerned, but not yet on the gen- 
eral funds part. Pennsylvania adopted both on condition 
that she do the collecting, but would agree if the rest did. 
So that only Maryland, Rhode Island, New York, and 
Georgia were not in line in some degree. In short, seven 
States had so acted that, if six others acted likewise the 
amendment would go into effect immediately, and the union 
would have the power of the purse. Not three weeks later 
another report was made and on March 3rd, Congress urged 
the States to make it final. In the Virginia legislature a 
mode of hastening was proposed the previous fall, in a call 
for a convention, but it was January, 1786, before it was 
adopted by that body, and then only for the commercial 
phase of 1784, but by May 1786, General Washington was 
taking a hand, in urging action upon his correspondents. 
This was partly because in March, New Jersey had refused 
to pay any more requisitions until the Wilson resolution 
was adopted and the union be given import powers ! Penn- 
sylvania's Assembly agreed to the Virginia invitation on 
March 21, 1786, and on the 23rd a repealer of the bank 
repealer was ordered ! 

The effort to pull the keystone out of the campaign arch 
was in a fair way to fail. It proved to be a greater contest 
than many in it had realized. The repeal-of-the-repealer 
fight became the very heart of it and it was a great con- 
test that ensued in that room above the old Congress room, 
wherein the followers of Justice Bryan fought valiantly 
against the bank group who had so long followed the 
lead of Mr. Wilson. About three-fifths of the bank stock, 
or 1235 out of 2176 shares were held in Philadelphia, 



CONTEST OF 1784 281 

and about two-thirds of the remainder was held in Hol- 
land, only seven states beside Pennsylvania owned any and 
only five counties outside of Philadelphia. This tre- 
mendous contest showed what a hold the old constitution 
and Justice Bryan had on Pennsylvania, however, for 
on April 1, 1786, after all of their great debates the 
bank lost by a vote of 41 to 28. Ten days later the As- 
sembly chose the men to go to the Annapolis convention 
proposed by Virginia, and these gentlemen were destined 
to a wide awakening, for they were to hear from New 
Jersey's delegates that they wanted no little commercial 
appurtenance, but a real program that would enable the 
Union to have full power to do what it ought to do ! This 
is typical of the wide-spread changes in the field of political 
science in America caused by these discussions for the past 
three years in all thirteen state legislatures. New Jersey, 
however, was convinced not only as Congress was, that 
the Wilson resolution and its companion were the best things 
yet devised ; but, as shall appear later, were sufficient ; they 
wanted these amendments, but they wanted but little else. 
The bank group wanted these as a stepping stone only. 
Like General Washington, they wanted much more; they 
wanted all that ought to go "ccith the power of the purse as 
well ; and most of the leading continental figures had known 
that ever since 1776. The bank group, led by James Wilson, 
wanted a government for the United States such as New 
York or Massachusetts had for those respective states : a 
single executive, a double legislature, and an appropriate 
separate judiciary, with powers suitable to national exis- 
tence and the power of the purse to effect it. They wanted 
a real government with teeth in it, and none wanted it more 
than James Wilson, General Washington and Robert Morris. 
So Justice Bryan knew what to expect, in large measure, 
and he and his following were as afraid of the monster for 
the nation as they were for the state of Pennsylvania. 

Meanwhile he had the usual experiences of life in his 
private and public capacity. In 1785 he was living on Vine 
Street between Second and Third Streets, where also lived 
his eldest son, Samuel, who had been Clerk of the As- 



282 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

sembly for the past two years — both terms of one controlled 
by his father's party and one not so well controlled, but 
enough to keep the bank dead for the time being. William 
Rawle was in the second block southward ; Dr. Rush was 
in Second Street; Dr. John Redman was also in Second 
near Arch ; State Treasurer Rittenhouse was on Arch and 
Seventh Streets, almost in the country; Morris lived on 
Market between Fifth and Sixth Streets ; Gouverneur Mor- 
ris on Market between Second and Third ; Oswald at the old 
Market and Front Street Coffee House; Charles Wilson 
Peale, the artist, at Third and Lombard; Mr. Sergeant, on 
Arch between Third and Fourth ; James Wilson, on Chest- 
nut between Fourth and Fifth; Speaker Mifflin lived on 
Vine Street, a square below Justice Bryan ; General Wayne 
stopped with Mr. Delaney at the City Tavern in Second 
Street ; Robert Wliitehill made his home at a boarding 
house in Fourth Street; Mr. Findlay was with a minister's 
family in Fourth Street and John Smiley near by in the 
same thoroughfare; Attorney-General Bradford was in 
Third between Market and Arch ; Judge Hopkinson's court 
was in Race, between Fourth and Fifth Streets ; Provost 
Dr. John Ewing on Arch Street ; Ex-Speaker John Bayard 
on Arch Street between Second and Front Streets ; Presi- 
dent Franklin in Market Street; — all in 1785, but in '86 
Justice Bryan lived in Third Street.^ 

It is quite evident Justice Bryan had a wide correspon- 
dence at this period in his Vine and Third Street homes. 
One from Joseph Gardner, one of his followers in Congress, 
dated New York, March 19, 1785, is illuminating: "The 
fate of the founding bill, I am likewise informed of. I am 
pleased that it passed as it did, but would much rather it 
had passed without any discrimination. I have my fears 
concerning the fate of the paper money. Should the bank 
give it a credit, that will promote its efficiency and perhaps 
their fears for their charter may have its weight with them. 

— ■ I have seen a petition to the Assembly published in 

the Philada. papers and republished here against the Bank. 

^ White Philadelphia Directory, 1785, and certain legal documents among 
the Bryan Papers in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 



CONTEST OF 1784 283 

What number of signers had it? Has it been presented? 
Will the Assembly take any steps upon [it] ? The bank in 
this city is not very secure ; there is a general suspicion that 
banks are all conducted too much upon principles of favor- 
itism. After repeated applications they have been refused 

a charter. A few days ago an act for the abolition of 

slavery took place here, nearly upon the principles of the 
Pennsylvania one. The country party in the New York 
Assembly are a majority and generally carry their measures 
in opposition to their Senate and their Council of Revision, 

as they are called. Rhode Island has passed the 5 

per ct. in a limited manner, to be collected in their own way 
and by officers of their own appointment. They have appro- 
priated eight thousand dollars out of it to pay their propor- 
tion of the interest of the foreign debt, and for this purpose 
have directed it to be paid to the order of Congress. The 
residue is to be applied in paying the interest of the do- 
mestic debt, to such of their citizens as are public 
creditors, and the redemption of their state notes. This 
is not satisfactory to many of our gentlemen, but less is 
said about it than would be, owing to the difficulties a 
similar bill finds in its passage through the legislature of 
this state. Numbers have petitioned the Assembly in favor 
of it (principally citizens) notwithstanding many of the 
leaders of the house are determined to give it every oppo- 
sition in their power. 

"Our grand committee of ways and means have not yet 
reported, but it is probable that a requisition will be made of 
three millions dollars or thereabout nearly upon the same 
principle as last years, for exigencies of the current year. 
Facilities, as they are called, or, in other words, notes for 
interest, will be received in payment of two-thirds cer- 
tainly, and more if the interest of the public debts mounts 
higher. 

"The late Indian treaty has put the U. S. in possession, 
according to several calculations which I have seen and 
made, of near twenty-five millions acres of land in the west- 
ern country. Congress wish soon to avail themselves of this 
iund to extinguish as much as possible of the domestic 



284 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

national debt. The arrangement for disposing of this prop- 
erty has been, some days ago, committed to a grand commit- 
tee of one from every state. We have met frequently upon 
this business, but have concluded nothing. Many important 
questions arise upon this subject. How large are the States 
to be? How bounded, whether by natural marks or by 
parallels of latitude? Is it to be granted regularly, one join- 
ing upon another, where lands not arable don't intervene? 
or are the purchasers to be suffered to roam at large (as in 
Pennsylvania) and take up as much and where they please? 
If the tracts are fixed, how large ought the largest and how 
small the smallest be? How much should the price 
per h^ acres be ? Or should there be different prices accord- 
ing to the value of the lands? Should there be any 
reservations of hundreds, or manors for the use of schools 
or other public uses? Salt springs and licks, and what has 
usually been called royal mines — how ought they to be dis- 
posed of? 

"The land speculators already smell a rat and expect fine 
picking; many of them are here and waiting with anxiety 
the event. There will be a swarm at the land offices in this 
new country ; many have already applied. Another treaty 
will be held this summer, in June perhaps, at Port St. Vin- 
cent, both for piece and purchase. If this should succeed, 
as is expected, thirty or forty millions more will be added. 
We are informed that the Indians in that country are dis- 
posed to sell and many of them mean moving over the Mis- 
sissippi. The question upon Mr. L has not been 

mentioned for some time. We received your pamphlet; we 
have kept it agoing with those who understand French. 

Nothing is said of the Wyoming affair. Do the As- 
sembly mean to take it under consideration? We wish to 
know in order that we may govern ourselves accordingly. 

The representation is generally complete, Georgia 

alone unrepresented, only one attending."^ 

Another correspondent was Congressman Wm. Henry, 
another of his followers, who writes from New York on 
March 25, 1785: "The principal business now before Con- 

^ Bryan Papers, Hist. Soc. Pa. 



CONTEST OF 1784 285 

gress is the disposing of the lands lately purchased and the 
making of a second purchase. Much time has been spent 
by a committee of one from each of twelve states on the 
first and it is probable the lands will be sold by districts of 
ten or twelve miles square to the highest bidder, above such 
point as Congress may fix for the right. A number of dis- 
tricts will probably be put up to sale in the different states, 
perhaps nearly in proportion their demands. The commis- 
sioners are authorized to make the second purchase to the 
Mis[siss]ippi and as the Indians have opened those lands 
for sale, there will probably be little difficulty in purchasing 
them. Commissioners are appointed to make a treaty with 
the Creeks, Cherokees &c. 

"The place for holding the Federal Court 

for Alassachusetts and New York is not yet determined. 
Longchamps affair was to have been brought forward 
this day, but is again gone off by an agreement to Monday 
next. Your French pamphlet came very appropos, as it 
has now [gone] through a number of able hands since 
and is now on Mr. [ ]. What are our As- 
sembly about? Have they passed the law for regulating 
elections? If this is not done, they will not hold their seats 
another year."^ 

Another New York letter of the following June 4, has 
some interesting comments by Congressman Dr. David 
Jackson : "You have seen the land ordinance. I was but 
a little in the house when it was ready to pass. It does not 
please me fully; it was a compromise between the prejudice 
of education (if I may use the expression) in the eastern 
and middle states with respect to their original mode of lo- 
cating their lands, the eastern people contending for the 
propriety of locating by townships & the middle and some 
of the southern folks being in favor of a division in small 
tracts, so as to suit the circumstances of all classes. I think 
also that the price is fixed too high. We attempted on the 
day of passing to reduce it to two-thirds of a dollar p. acre, 
but it was carried in the negative. I will thank you for 
your candid opinion on this ordinance. You have heard 

1 Bryan Papers, Hist. Soc. of Pa. 



286 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

of the North CaroHna cession of western territory to the 
United States in June, 1784 : They gave Congress until the 
first of June, 1785, to accept of the cession; but previous to 
that time revoked the act of June, 1784, & forbid their dele- 
gates in Congress to execute the deeds of cession agreeable 
to that act. The people of that western part of North 
Carolina, which was included in the act of cession, have 
since declared themselves an independent state by the name 
of Franklin & placed the act of cession as aforesaid for so 
doing & have sent a memorial to Congress praying to be 
received into the federal union. This naturally bro't the 
act of cession of North Carolina on the floor; indeed, I 
cannot conceive why it had not been accepted before the 
act revoking made its appearance; it was contended by al- 
most all the gentlemen of the law that the act of cession 
was still good (the act revoking notwithstanding) provided 
Congress accepted within the time limited in said act & that 
the execution of a deed in form by the delegates of that 
state, which they then refused to do, was not necessary to 
vest the title in the United States, for that this was done by 
the act itself fully and completely. It was therefore moved 
that Congress now accept the cession as aforesaid ; this w^as 
overruled on the score of policy — that as Congress had de- 
layed to accept the cession until the time limiting the accept- 
ance was on the point of expiring & that it had not been 
taken up at all, until a memorial made its appearance from 
a part of that state (styled, by some, in rebellion) praying 
to be admitted into the Federal union — that taking the mat- 
ter up at this late hour & as things now stood, would be tak- 
ing an undue advantage of No. Carolina, rather tending to 
favor a separation at any time of a state, whenever a few 
turbulent people were so disposed, — that the measure would 
very probably irritate the state to so great a degree as to 
induce them to withdraw from the union, — that it was best 
for the present to use lenient measures, — that in all proba- 
bility No. Carolina would in a very short time, again make 
the desired cession, for that she could not possibly long 
hold those people beyond the mountains subject to her 
jurisdiction. The matter then ended with a resolution, as 



CONTEST OF 1784 287 

you will have seen in the public papers, recommending to 
No. Carolina to reconsider this matter & act on liberal 
principles &c. No. Carolina, I think, makes but a foolish 
figure in this business; she made a sort of an Indian gift, 
which she had scarce parted with before she called it back 
into her possession. I have no doubt but she will at her next 
session of Assembly, confirm anew her former cession, for 
from all accounts, the people, beyond the Apalachian moun- 
tains, which have now declared themselves an independent 
state, will never again return under the jurisdiction of No. 
Carolina, nor is it in the power of that state to force a com- 
pliance. 

"Congress have not yet finished the requisition on the 
states for the year 1785 ; it ought to have gone out at least 
five months ago & at this time some preparation ought to be 
making for the business of 1786; however 1785 must pre- 
cede. In determining the requisition for this year on the 
report of a grand committee for that purpose, there is 30,000 
dollars called for, to be appropriated for the purpose of 
erecting Federal buildings. Whenever this comes on the 
carpet, the propriety of erecting those buildings will also 
become a subject of discussion. I confess I have not yet 
been able fully to make up my mind on the subject, having 
never heard arguments pro and con on this business, but 
am rather inclined to give my negative. I query whether, 
in this business, I should be joined by my colleagues, es- 
pecially Mrss. P[eti]t & W[ilso]n. The latter is expected 
every day, when our delegation will be full. I can easily 
account for the prejudices of those two gentlemen in favor 
of a measure of this nature. Be pleased, as soon as con- 
venient, to give me your opinion on this subject; it will have 
great weight with me in forming mine. I am much pleased 
to hear the paper money seems to keep its ground & is in 
pretty general circulation. The Bank stopping all fresh dis- 
counts is greatly in its favor. 

"You have Don Guardaqui with you. We look for him 
here shortly. We have had letters announcing his arrival 
& rank. The navigation, full and free to the United 
States, of the Mississippi must of course become a matter of 



288 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

enquiry & subject of discussion with his court. That is a 
matter the United States can never give up ; otherwise our 
territory in that quarter would be of httle consequence. 

"The Continental Treasurer would wish to stay in 
Philadelphia, altho' he, together with all the other officers 
of Congress residing there, have been directed to come to 
New York. From the present disposition of Congress, he 
will find it absolutely necessary either to come to New 
York or resign."^ 

About a week later, on June 10, 1785, Justice Bryan 
himself wrote a letter to John Whitehill, giving a legal 
opinion requested, which is one of the few that have been 
preserved, and is an excellent sample of his style, his flow- 
ing penmanship and his legal learning. It is dated at 
Philadelphia: "Sir, you were pleased to ask my opinion, 
concerning the trial of the Indian, named Mamachtag- 
win, who is prisoner at Pittsburgh, charged with the mur- 
der of one, if not two white-men, whose names are not fully 
given ; that is to say, how, where, & by what authority 
the homicide should be enquired of and adjudged. 

"The letter you put in my hands from Robert Gal- 
breath, Esquire, is so very bare of circumstances, that it will 
be difficult to consider the case with the precision it ought. 
Even the county where the fact was perpetrated is not 
given. But if it be supposed, that it happened within West- 
moreland, another question arises, was it remote from in- 
habitants? For if it were, then the trial should be in the 
county of Philadelphia. Otherwise it must be in the 
proper county. By what you dropt about this matter, I 
surmise, that it passed on the north or northwest of the Ohio, 
not far from Pittsburgh, consequently not remote from in- 
habitants, as the Act of 1744, page 200, of Ross & Gallo- 
way's compilement of the Acts of Assembly of the late 
Province, loosely has it. And I am clear that if there be 
any doubt on this hand, the doubt should be decided in 
favor of trial by the vicinage, which is according to com- 
mon law. I am of opinion that the Indian, if he demands 

^ Bryan Papers, Hist. Soc. of Pa. 



CONTEST OF 1784 289 

it, has a right to a party-jury, half foreigners. Wm. Penn, 
the founder, in 1683, established something of this nature 
in respect to damages done by Indians ; and I have on my 
memory some traces of a trial formerly at Chester of an 
Indian for rape, when six Indians were called in. The law, 
however, concerning mediatem linguae does not require, 
that the aliens be of the nation to which the accused be- 
longs. 

"Your difficulty does not, however, arise upon the point 
stated & discussed already. It is rather upon the author- 
ity of the President & Council to issue a special commission 
to persons who are judges of the Supreme Court, to hear & 
determine concerning this, or other similar cases. The 
Justices of the Supreme Court above two years ago were 
questioned by the President & Council on this head & 1 
then gave my opinion in the affirmative, with reasons 
for it. To this I beg leave to refer. There need little 
be added now, unless that it appears by the Act of 1774, 
above cited, that the Judges of the Supreme Court were 
not, at the passing of it, supposed to be the only justices 
of oyer, terminer & goal delivery, competent to try 
capital offenses. The practice was not unknown be- 
fore the revolution & capital punishment was inflicted at 
Bedford since the revolution by virtue of a commission of 
this nature. 

"Mr. Galbreath's idea of sending up the death warrant 
before trial is extravagant. But by the common law, the 
court, which tries, should pronounce judgment, & award 
execution thereof also, & the Act for the Advancement of 
Justice, Section 6"', enables the Judges to award & order 
execution to be done. The reference to Council, & 
the warrant from the hon[orabl]e board for the actual exe- 
cution is but an usage, introduced by a clemency, & more 
suitable to the state of Pennsylvania, of formerly, when the 
Province consisted of three small counties, than it is at 
present. It may be easily dispensed with by Council ; nay, 
the Judges ought, upon proper cause, to disregard it. In 
England a similar usage is confined to Middlesex ; for in 
the other counties, the Judges direct the executions, but on 



290 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

special occasions respite till the Supreme Executive shall 
interpose, if it be proper. 

"The Act for setting off the county of Westmoreland 
directs that all courts for said county be holden in the house 
of Robert Hanna, which I suppose is at Hanna's Town. 
This should be the place of judgment, if it be not altered by 
some later law. 

"It would be prudent to make the commission, if the 
Council see fit to issue one, special to the very case & to 
limit the power to the trial of the Indian, now in custody, 
by name & the homicide as already committed. The names, 
indeed, of the person or persons slain should also be speci- 
fied; but perhaps those are not transmitted. 

"The above is my present view of the subject. What I 
have said is rather hurried, as you wished for an early 
answer. Perhaps the County Courts of Common Pleas 
& Sessions of Westmoreland are more expressly fixed at 
Hanna's house, than the Supreme & Oyer & Terminer for 
capital matters."^ 

Another paper, an answer to two queries : 1. Whether 
any person may be commissioned, specially, as Justices of 
Oyer & Terminer in Pennsylvania ? and 2. Whether Justices 
of the Peace can be appointed by the Council, unless the 
freeholders of the district first elect a double number? — 
throws light on his legal methods. In answer to the first he 
says : "The Act of May 22, 1722, for establishing courts, 
appoints that the Justices of the Supreme Court, who then 
held at the pleasure of the Governor, should be Justices 
of Oyer & Terminer. This might, perhaps, have been con- 
strued as excluding any other, had not long usage under 
this law interpreted otherwise. The Judges of Westminster 
are not the only Judges of Oyer & Terminer in England, 
& ever since the reign of William, the Third, when inde- 
pendent commissions and salaries were established for them, 
no such idea has been entertained. Nothing has passed in 
Pennsylvania, as I know of, at or since the American Revo- 
lution to introduce any alteration upon this point. It may 
perhaps be suggested, that this authority, in the Council, 

^ Bryan Papers, Hist. Soc. of Pa. 



CONTEST OF 1784 291 

may be abused, as it enables that board to select Judges, in 
a particular case, to hear and try, with design to prevent 
a fair and equal hearing; but such doings ought not to be 
presumed. They would be too odious. I am [of] opinion, 
that there may be cases in which such commissions would 
be not only legal, but proper. As to the commission issued 
lately to certain persons in Westmoreland & Washington 
counties with blanks in it, and the filling into it of the names 
of the accused, after the sealing and issuing of the said 
commissions (tho' the names, therein inserted, had been 
ever so clearly expressed) I take this to be void and that 
such a writing gave no authority whatever." 

His reply to the second said : "By the 30'^'' section of the 
Constitution, if the freeholders of any district incline to 
have a Justice of the Peace appointed, in any other mode 
than the mode therein directed, the legislature may gratify 
them; but that the Assembly, upon the neglect or refusal of 
the freeholders to choose, may authorize the Executive 
branch to appoint, is not clear. Perhaps the Council, upon 
such neglect, might commission Justices of the Peace, till 
the people resume their rights ; under the general power 
given them in article 19'*^, to supply all vacancies. This 
power of the Assembly, however, to alter the mode at the 
desire of the freeholders, remarkably distinguishes the case 
of these Magistrates from Sheriffs & Coroners. In re- 
spect to these last, as there is but one for each county, the 
Council must immediately supply the failure. These last 
are necessary for the complete organization of judicial au- 
thority; whereas, tho' two or three districts, in a county, 
neglect or refuse to exercise their privilege of electing Jus- 
tices of the Peace, the defect would be attended with no 
great inconveniency. 

"Another idea arises upon starting this question : and 
that is, whether the power given, in the 9*^^ article, to the leg- 
islature to incorporate towns, boroughs, cities and counties, 
includes not that of constituting mayors, aldermen & bur- 
gesses, with the authorities of Justices of the Peace? I am 
inclined to think not, for such corporations were before the 
institution of these justices; and many communities of this 



292 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

nature subsist in England, wherein they have no Justices of 
the Peace under the charter. The city of Westminster, for 
instance, is governed by an High Stev^ard and burgesses, 
with a baihff, who acts as a sheriff. This corporation has 
no Justice of the Peace within it. For the Justices of the 
liberty of Westminster are specially appointed by the 
Crown. Yet, the High Steward holds a court with the 
jurisdiction of a manor court; and inquiries of nuisances 
&c. 'By Holt, Chief Justice, tho' a man be mayor, it doth 
not follow that he is a Justice of the Peace ; for that must 
be by a special grant in the charter.' — Raymond, 1030. As 
therefore the legislature may erect corporations of towns, 
without constituting Justices of the Peace, it doth not fol- 
low, that by the power to incorporate towns, &c., the legis- 
lative power must necessarily be enabled to constitute Jus- 
tices of the Peace in a mode different from the 30^^ article. 
The Assembly may adopt in the place of such corporations, 
the mode of the constitution. Or if the major part of the 
freeholders, in such town, apply to the Assembly, in such 
manner as, that it is manifest that they desire another mode 
of appointing those Justices to be established ; as to them, 
then the Legislature may direct, that annual permanent 
magistrates with the authority of Justices of the Peace 
be chosen by the town or other district seeking the altera- 
tion as an improvement of the plan in the constitution. Be- 
sides if the power of incorporating cities, towns, & coun- 
ties necessarily include right to give the authority of Jus- 
tice of the Peace to a mayor, alderman or burgess, thus 
might the Legislature wholly evade the SO*^"" section of the 
constitution, by incorporating every county in the state, 
for certain purposes, & thus covertly wrest the choice of 
these magistrates from the people, without their consent. 
"How far those things have been attended to in reviv- 
ing the charters of Lancaster and Chester, or in framing a 
municipal government for Carlisle, I am not informed. If 
the major part of the freeholders of these towns have not, 
previously, expressed their consent to the deviation from 
the SO*^*" section of the constitution. I cannot see how their 
burgesses can be safe in acting as Justices of the Peace. 



CONTEST OF 1784 293 

The magistrates concerned would do well to enquire into 
this. 

"There was an act of Assembly passed in 1777, author- 
izing the Council to appoint Judges of the City Court. As 
these officers exercise the powers of Justices of the Peace, 
in hearing and determining concerning breaches of the peace, 
it was always doubted whether this was strictly right. But 
the Council has hitherto been careful, as I understand, to 
nominate none to this station, but such as were Justices of 
the Peace for the city and county already. 

"Another law which was made SP"^ August, 1778, 
whereby the Council was directed to appoint Justices of the 
Peace in case of the neglect or refusal of the freeholders of 
any district to elect according to the constitution, seems to 
have been an unadvised stretch of legislative power, not con- 
sistent with the frame of government. But it has not, as 
I know, been acted on, in any instance."^ 

Fortunately, a letter of Justice Bryan's to his wife about 
this time from Carlisle exists, altho' dated with only May 
31st, without the year, which illustrates another phase of 
his character. "My Love," he begins, "I arrived here on 
Monday morning last and on Wednesday I sent a letter 
down to Lancaster to be forwarded. I then acknowledged 
receipt of your son Jonathan's of Friday before. We 
have just done here, and tomorrow proceed to Chambers- 
burgh, 32 miles to the westward of this town. The week 
has been fully employed and much business done. Mr. 
Chief Justice talks of leaving us & returning from this, 
yet I am not sure he will. 

"Last night Genl. Irwin of this county returned from 
N. York, by way of Philadelphia, by whom we have all 
the news which are going. 

"Dr. Davidson & wife are well & give their com- 
pliments. It rained last evening heavily & again this 
morning, which makes the streets very filthy. The roads 
tomorrow will be wet. 

"This place affords no news. Genl. Thompson's fine 
place, somewhat beyond Carlisle was this day sold by the 

''■ Bryan Papers, Hist. Soc. of Pa. 



294 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Sheriff for £1100; called very low & not long since rated at 

£3000 & more. He died insolvent. I am, my Dr., 

with love to all, most affect^ yours, Geo. Bryan. P, 

S., I have enjoyed & do enjoy perfect health. The mare is 
very orderly. We have fires evening & morning almost 
daily. [To] Mrs. Bryan, Philadelphia."^ 

During these years, of 1785 and '6, Justice Bryan's vari- 
ous activities did not prevent his usual devotion to the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania at Fourth and Arch Streets. In 
February, 1785, he was placed on the committee on real es- 
tate and was present continuously the rest of the year except 
on April 27th. The institution was growing, with 327 enroll- 
ment : 38 in the collegiate classes ; 51 in the Latin school ; 49 
in the English school; 47 in the German; 53 in the mathe- 
matical school; and 64 boys and 25 girls in the charity 
schools. Mr. Sergeant had succeeded Mr. Matlack as trus- 
tee, and on August 30, 1785, Chief Justice McKean, Justice 
Bryan and Dr. James Hutchinson were appointed to handle 
the bill before the Assembly. On December 7, 1785, Justice 
Bryan was made chairman of the committee on faculty sala- 
ries to carry out a plan proposed on Nevember 12, 1783. His 
attendance was almost equally good in 1786, when he was 
absent from board meetings but three times. On January 
7th, a society of young lawyers were allowed to begin meet- 
ing in the Fourth Street building, but a mutual improvement 
young men's society request of the same kind was pigeon- 
holed ; while the Medical Society was favored. On March 
8th, he was made chairman of the committee on leasing of 
Norrington Farm and Mills ; and on December 18, 1786, he 
became chairman of the finance committee and also that on 
ways and means. It will thus be seen that he was, as treas- 
urer, leading the financial affairs of the University ; and that 
the institution was growing.- 

^ Bryan Papers, Hist Soc. of Pa. 

- The book of receipts for disbursement kept by Treasurer Bryan for 
the University was in possession of S. S. Bryan, Titusville, Pa., in the late 
1890s, when he gave it to the University of Pennsylvania in Provost Pep- 
per's time. 

In the Rush MSS. 41, p. 93, at Ridgway Branch of the Philadelphia Library 
a letter of George Bryan's says: "He [Dr. Rush] was a professor in the college 
and might have been so in the University [before the consolidation, is meant]. 
He was elected by the Trustees by as good a majority as Dr. Ewing, but 
he insulted the trustees in his manner of declining. When his friends after- 



CONTEST OF 1784 295 

In ordinary terms, one might expect to find the record 
of Judge Bryan's court activities, especially in the Supreme 
and High Court of Errors and Appeals, in Pennsylvania 
judicial reports, such as are now taken for granted in this 
country, and even then in use in England. But, as a matter 
of fact, no attempt to gather, edit and publish reports in this 
state was made for nearly a half dozen years after the year 
1785, now under consideration. British reports had been 
used before the revolution, and the latter event made mere 
trial and decision quite difficult enough without looking to 
the future. In order to better understand this situation, a 
look ahead of four years may be taken, to 1789, when, Alex- 
ander James Dallas, a brilliant member of the bar of the 
Supreme Court, first began to collect materials for a first 
volume of court reports, and he found it necessary to in- 
clude even the Common Pleas courts of Philadelphia to find 
enough for any volume. He was barely able to get thirty- 
three pages of cases before the revolution, the earliest being 
in Chief Justice Allen's time in 1754, and hardly more than 
one opinion by Chief Justice Chew can be found. Mere 
statement of the case and decision fills the space. After 
the revolution the first report of Supreme Court cases is 
those of 1779, and but few even then. And those were 
trying times when mere decision, not elaborate opinion, 
was desired ; and these the imperious, well-educated Chief 
Justice McKean almost invariably furnished, when present, 
and they were vigorous, drastic and unmistakably to the 
point, as though he were engaged in making precedents, not 
following them. They were consequently brief. Also a 
spirit of justice is discernible that reminds one of the mental 
tone of a Marshall. Few even of these are preserved, com- 
paratively, and no formal opinions of other Justices, long 

wards proposed him he had but one vote. The station is now full, but the 
person has not yet absolutely accepted." He also says, speaking of Dickinson 
College: "Believe me, sir, it is a scheme of dividing the Presbyterian in- 
terest, and preparatory to transferring back the University to the narrow 
foundation which it formerly stood on; to dismiss the able and worthy Pro- 
vost Dr. Ewing and to turn us over to a difficult, if not impractible attempt 
to build up a new fund. ... It is manifest to all here why the idea should 
have been set up by Rush." Of this, Dr. Rush says: "He [Bryan] is 
a man of too much understanding to believe it himself." After the man- 
ner of the day Dr. Rush calls the Bryan group: "the secret junto," "the 
pale-faced faction," and even by the favorite term of both sides the name 
of a well-known malodorous animal. 



296 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

enough to be characterized as opinions. The first, in which 
Justice Bryan had a share is an opinion signed by the 
whole court in 1784, and requested by the Supreme Execu- 
tive Council. 

This was a case in which the executive questioned the 
decision of the court; and although the court answered the 
queries, they plainly said they did not "hold themselves 
bound to assign any reason for their judgment; and when 
they do give reasons, it is always in public. [Kel. 54.] This 
is mentioned, that the present proceeding may not be drawn 
into a precedent."^ As Qiief Justice McKean and Justices 
Bryan and Rush signed it and there is no evidence of what 
part in it Justice Bryan had, it may be disregarded. 

The first reported expression of Justice Bryan's is in 
another trial of 1784, namely, the celebrated Longchamps 
case, due to an attack by Charles Julian de Longchamps on 
Monsieur Marbois, secretary of the French legation and 
consul. In this Chief Justice McKean gave one of 
his most elaborate opinions, but as he presented it to the 
jury. Justice Bryan remarked: "The distinction between 
a consul and a member of legation is not warranted in this 
case ; for Monsieur Marbois never ceased to be the latter. 
As secretary of Legation, his authority descends from a 
high source, his commission being made out in the same 
form as the minister's, and signed in the same manner by 
the King, his master."- 

No case is reported for 1785, in which his own expres- 
sion is given; but in 1786, the Abolition Society brought a 
case before Justice Bryan, who, on the following day, was 
joined by the Chief Justice, claiming freedom of a mulatto 
brought into the state. The jury brought in a verdict for 
the owner. Such results did not always happen in Justice 
Bryan's courts, as may be seen from the long public letter 
by this defendant, Mr. Philip Dalby of Alexandria, Vir- 
ginia, of March 27, 1786, in the Virginia Journal of March 
30th. It is entitled "A Caution To All Travellers To Phila- 
delphia From The Southern States, in which he describes 



1 1 Dallas p. 93. 

2 Dallas 124. 



CONTEST OF 1784 297 

being brought into "Judge Bryan's chambers," and subse- 
quent action that was fought so hard on both sides that, al- 
though Mr. Dalby won, he had as keen a reaHzation of the 
dangers of entering Philadelphia with a slave that he wished 
to warn his fellow Virginians of the danger, as it took him 
nearly a year and a half to get a verdict.^ 

During 1785 and 1786 Judge Hopkinson joined the news- 
paper war on the Constitutionalists or Bryan party; but he 
did it in satirical skits that shrewdly pilloried Justice Bryan 
and the whole Supreme Court. One of these was a re- 
joinder on Thomas Paine's article in defense of the Bank 
of North America in 1785, by "Uncommon Sense," as he 
styled himself. In this he analyzed sovereignty as composed 
of power and will, the former lying in the Assembly, and 
the latter in the people ; and then he went on to show how 
that principle had been corrupted, as he said, by an early 
custom of the Assembly in seeking advice of the Justices 
of the Supreme Court, when a difficult question arose ; 
and these questions became political as well as legal and the 
Justices thus usurped the will of the people, so that the 
will part of sovereignty "is lodged with certain learned and 
worthy persons, who are not members of that house, and 
who are not vested with the power of actually making laws." 
"On this singularity in our political system," he says, "is 
founded a doctrine, not long since advanced by learned men, 
which, if established, must fully answer the purposes of 
those who discovered it, viz. that assemblies, juries, and such 
confidential appointments, are nothing more than legal ma- 
chines [harking back to his skit on juries] designed to give 
legal sanction to the views of those, who from superior abili- 
ties and official greatness, are best qualified to influence and 
direct them."- He shows how sovereignty has become, so 
to speak, an "out-of-doors influence." He says the consti- 
tution has changed : they now have two houses, an upper 
house in the State House, and a lower house at the Indian 
Queen in Market Street, "and the judges of the Supreme 



^ 1 Dallas 179. Virginia Journal, copy in the Brj'an Papers at the 
Hist. Soc. of Penna. 

'^ Miscellaneoiis Essays, Hopkinson, Vol. 2, p. 231. 



298 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Court form the legislative council. This council, in con- 
junction with the lower house, is the repository of the will 
of our sovereignty, having a direct influence upon the acts 
of government whilst under deliberation. And the council 
have, by precedent, acquired a separate and exclusive right 
of revising, altering, and amending the laws after they have 
been enacted and published. And thus hath our bill of facts 
introduced a form of government very different from that 
designated in our bill of rights and original constitution." 
This was to counter on the point made by the Bryanites that 
the national bank was an iniperimn in imperio. 

In 1786, he turned his free lance on the Supreme Court 
itself, in a skit that professed to be a new style of legal re- 
port. The bench is composed of Chief Justice I, and 
Justices You and Him, "Him" being Justice Bryan, 
who gives the decisive statement as to just what the law is, 
while the Chief Justice does the brow-beating of grand 
jury, lawyers and everybody else. The final decision was 
that of Judge Him, because the Chief Justice was on one 
side and Judge You on the other — the case being left under 
advisement in doubt! 

This was the situation of the great contest in the winter 
of 1786-1787, when Congress was considering the recom- 
mendation of both Annapolis convention, and also Virginia, 
that a national constitutional convention be called, to 
amend the Articles of Confederation ; and Virginia, New 
Jersey and Pennsylvania had agreed to it by the mid-winter 
holidays. 



CHAPTER XIX 
George Bryan and a New National Constitution 

1787 

When the election of October, 1786, was over it became 
evident that the Wilson Republicans had a safe majority, 
although at the first occasion of a test, namely, on Novem- 
ber 9th, the margin was represented by 28 to 23. General 
Mififlin was again elected Speaker and Samuel Bryan was 
not elected clerk, while the aged Dr. Franklin was called 
to the office of chief executive. A better test was had 
on December 1st, when the margin was 32 to 25. The 
real test came, however, on December 13th, when the res- 
toration of the Bank of North America charter came up, 
and this gave 33 to 28, in favor of it. This was modified 
on the 28th to 31 to 30, which showed that some of the Re- 
publicans were for making a new and more limited charter ; 
and when some of these limitations were formulated it 
became evident that the 33 to 28 margin was about the 
normal majority. This made it plain that, while the Wilson 
element was in the majority, the Bryan element was so very 
strong that, with its new able floor leaders, like Findlay, 
Whitehill and Smiley, every inch of the ground was to be 
contested. This became still more evident on March 3, 
1787, when, what was said to be Justice Bryan's "darling 
project," the building of a State House at Harrisburg, was 
carried by a vote of 33 to 29. On March 17th, however, the 
bank was restored, in a limited way, by a vote of 35 to 28, 
and on March 21st a reconsideration of the new capital pro- 
gram was secured, and reversed, by a similar vote 35 to 27.^ 

Fortunately, Justice Bryan has left some impressions 

1 Justice Bryan was re-commssioned as a member of the Supreme bench 
of Pennsylvania on April 3, 1787, by President Benjamin Franklin. This 
commission, in 1906, was in possession of George Bryan, Esq., of Richmond, 
Va. The whereabouts of the commission of 1780 is not known. 

299 



300 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

of this period, looking back at it, from a later date : "Previ- 
ous to the appointment of the Convention there seemed to 
be a general wish for a more efficient confederation," he 
writes in reply to some queries addressed to him. "The 
public debt was unpaid and unfunded. We were deluged 
with foreign goods, which it was evident might have paid 
large sums to the continental treasury, if duties could have 
been generally laid and collected, and at the same time the 
levying such duties would have checked the extravagant 
consumption. Whilst Congress could only recommend 
measures and the states individually could refuse to exe- 
cute them, it was obvious that we were in danger of fall- 
ing to pieces. 

"The opposition of Rhode Island to the five per cent 
had made a deep impression upon people's minds. A 
desire of strengthening the hands of Congress was very 
general ; but no particular scheme seemed to be digested, 
except that most men seemed to wish Congress possessed 
the power to levy duties on imported goods. At this time 
the Convention was proposed and members were elected for 
Pennsylvania about the beginning of the year 1787 ; — I do 
not remember the particular time. Very little bustle was 
made and little or no opposition. What has been called 
the Anti-Constitutionalist or Aristocratic Party then gov- 
erned our councils and the representatives in Convention 
were chosen almost wholly of that party and virtually from 
the city of Philadelphia. 

"The Convention met without much expectation of any- 
thing very important being done by them till towards the 
close, although some intimations were made, beforehand, 
by some foolish members (as they were thought) of the 
Society of Cincinnatus that nothing less than a monarchy 
was to be erected and that the people of Massachusetts were 
driven into rebellion for the very purpose of smoothing the 
was to this step by their suppression. Little regard, how- 
ever, was paid to these speeches till towards the close of the 
session of the Convention, when surmises now spread from 
other quarters that something injurious to the liberties of 
the people was about to be produced. These surmises 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 301 

were again contradicted in some degree, and the Convention 
rose with favorable prospects. 

"I am not able to give a particular state of trade in 
Pennsylvania in 1786," he continues in reply to another 
question. "But in general it was in a very unfavorable situ- 
ation. Our navigation was almost wholly in the hands of 
foreigners, chiefly English ; and a great part of the ne- 
gotiation and sale of merchandise was in the same hands. 
The numerous classes of tradesmen who depend on com- 
merce and particularly those who depend on navigation 
were destroyed. There was no anarchy nor any consid- 
erable degree of licentiousness in Pennsylvania. Party 
spirit was high ; but much more violent on paper than any- 
where else. The Tories, with the spirit of chagrin and 
resentment which flowed from their disappointments and 
what they called persecution (chiefly arising from the Test 
laws) had taken side with the Anti-Constitutional or Aristo- 
cratic party in opposition to the Constitutionalists, who had 
before held the reins of government. But, on the whole, 
we were much more peaceable and orderly than our neigh- 
bors, who read our newspapers, believed us to be. And 
Pennsylvania, all along, besides supporting her own govern- 
ment, had given most effectual aid to the United States, par- 
ticularly in money. 

"The ruin of the commerce and navigation of the 
United States," he continues in answer to still another 
question, "was owing to a concurrence of causes. Some of 
the northern fisheries had been long nourished by bounties 
from Great Britain before the war ; and those bounties were 
now withdrawn. We had a deluge of money at the close 
of the war, which raised the prices of our commodities at 
home and the vast diminution of industry increased this 
mischief. Trade, during the war, had fallen into the hands 
of successful, but ignorant adventurers, who did not under- 
stand commerce. The English manufacturers, at the end 
of the war, were vastly overloaded with those kinds of goods 
which w^ere calculated for the American markets, and they 
crowded them upon us by the hands of their own clerks and 
agents, in such immense quantities, that it was impossible 



302 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

for us ever to pay for them. These goods were either sold 
for small prices, or turned out without discretion and never 
paid for. But the exclusion of our ships from so many of 
the British and French ports and the want of Mediterranean 
passes have contributed to the destruction of our navigation 
more than all other causes. 

"As to the paper money of Pennsylvania," he continues, 
"which has been issued since the war, it was made in 1785 
for the purpose of establishing funds for payment of the in- 
terest to public creditors and to lend to such as were under 
the necessity of borrowing, at a time when there were very 
few private lenders. I am not well acquainted with the de- 
tail of its funds, quantities and times of redemption. It 
has too much fluctuated in its credit, and has been as low 
as 33^ p. cent discount. In Jersey the same motives for 
issuing paper money prevailed and its fate has been simi- 
lar. I understand it is now at two-thirds of its nominal 
value. "^ 

It will be seen that Justice Bryan, like many others, 
did not perceive the tremendous significance of a combina- 
tion of events, such as the great feeling aroused by the 
Spanish treaty that threatened to close the Mississippi and 
so cripple southern operations in the west, when rival north- 
ern and southern states were projected; the rapid agree- 
ment of the various states for a convention ; and especially 
the remarkable acceptance by the states of not only the 
Wilson resolution of 1783, but even more of its companion 
resolution of April 30, 1784, so that with a few slight changes 
by states the latter could have gone into operation within a 
month after the Annapolis meeting. Justice Bryan and his 
party seemed to consider this merely the possible success 
of these two amendments to the Articles of Confederation, 
while men like James Wilson and his sympathizers saw in it 
something far beyond that. Justice Bryan thought he knew 
the tremendous conservative power of his own party in 
Pennsylvania and like elements in the other states, and he 

^ Paper among the George Bryan Papers at the Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania. The part here quoted is but about one-third of the whole 
paper, but the rest pertains to a slightly later period, in connection with which 
it will appear. 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 303 

did ; but the national bank crowd and their sympathizers 
over the land proposed the greatest fight of their lives for a 
real national government far beyond the amendments of 
1783 and '84. Justice Bryan failed to measure the great 
power of the past three or four years, of the thirteen 
schools of nationalism inaugurated by the Wilson reso- 
lution of 1783. He has stated how little was expected of 
the convention by him and his party, and how they rested 
in that fancied security until the new constitution was pub- 
lished on September 17, 1787. Then he realized, as New 
Jersey did, that it went so far beyond the Wilson resolution 
that it made them gasp ! They began to learn that the hated 
leader of the "Aristocratic" party of Pennsylvania, James 
Wilson, had fought and wrought out a real interstate gov- 
ernment that had as real national power as a state had 
state power. The secrecy of the convention during the long 
summer months at the State House, from May to Sep- 
tember suddenly became menacing and the dangers of 
a real super-state loomed large in their minds. Further- 
more they learned it was so terrible that leading members 
from Virginia and New York had refused to sign it! 
Some news of the fierce forensic debates on the great ques- 
tion began to trickle out and they found that New Jersey, 
who wanted so much more than anyone else at the An- 
napolis convention, was frightened at what she finally got! 
The mystery of that long secret summer session now peopled 
the new instrument with all manner of evil spirits. 

"When the federal constitution was proposed to the 
people," writes Justice Bryan, "the desire of increasing the 
powers of Congress was great, and this object had a mighty 
influence in its favor. The popularity of Genl. W[ashing- 
ton] and Dr. Franklin had still more. The people in the 
towns, who depended, in any measure, on trade, expected 
great relief from it. The gentlemen of the late army, 
and the tools of the aristocracy, were loud in its support; 
and as the chief opposition to it was believed to arise from 
such [in Pennsylvania] as belonged to the Constitutional 
party, the whole body of the old Tories, a numerous and 
wealthy set of men, joined in its support. There is too 



304 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

much reason to believe that some men among us had deeper 
views [for a monarchy?] than they chose to declare and 
wished a government even less popular than the one pro- 
posed ; but in Pennsylvania they have been very reserved 
on this head. The opposition was very powerful and their 
language was for adopting the constitution and procuring 
amendments afterwards. 

"The writer of this," Justice Bryan continues, "had con- 
fined his views of alteration to be made in the Confedera- 
tion to a mere enlargement of the powers of Congress, par- 
ticularly as to marine affairs.^ He thinks the experiment 
ought at least to have been tried, whether we could not have 
proceeded under a Confederation of independent states, 
before we proceeded to consolidate all power in one gen- 
eral government. 

"The Convention sat in the State House, and debated 
in private. It has nevertheless been said, and I suppose is 
beyond doubt, that the members were much divided, 
and that the present form of constitution was agreed to as 
a compromise, when they had almost despaired of agreeing 
upon any one. 

"When the system was published," he continues, "some 
writers in the newspapers stated many objections to it. The 
party in opposition were the old Constitutional Whigs [the 
Bryan party] for the most part. Numbers of those, how- 
ever, and especially in the towns, joined in supporting the 
new federal constitution." 

Then he analyzes the character of the support in de- 
tail : "The Cincinnati were in support of it. The civil 
ofificers were threatened in newspaper publications, if they 
should oppose, and were mostly in favor of it. Monied 
men, and particularly the stockholders in the bank were in 
favor of it. The merchants [were] in favor of it. Law- 
yers — the greatest part in favor of it. Divines of all de- 
nominations, with very few exceptions, in favor of it. They 
had suffered by paper money. Men of letters, many of 
them, were opposed to it. Whigs — the majority of whom 

'^ This of course was the amendment of 1784, so that it does not appear 
that the Wilson amendment of 1783 was approved by Justice Bryan, at 
least so far as his own expression is concerned. 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 305 

opposed to it. Tories — almost all for it. The women — all 
admire Genl. W[ashington]. Mechanics — such as depend 
on commerce and navigation, in favor. The others divided 
according to their former attachments to the revolution and 
constitution of Pennsylvania or their prejudice against them. 
Sea-faring men followed the mercantile interests and were 
strenuous in favor of it. Creditors were influenced in favor 
of it by their aversion to paper money ; yet some were op- 
posed to it. Debtors are often creditors in their turn 
and the paper money had great effect on men's minds. The 
public creditors were much divided, according to their 
former predilections and attachments. The counties nearest 
the navigation were in favor of it generally; those more 
remote, in opposition. The farmers were perhaps more 
numerous in opposition than any other set of men. Most 
townsmen were for it. The foreigners were chiefly con- 
nected with the mercantile people and were in favor of it. 
Even the foreign seamen were made useful to the support 
of it in Philadelphia." 

He then describes the peculiar reversal in party names 
that it occasioned in Philadelpha. "The party names, 
before the Convention sat, were Whigs and Tories, which 
names were wearing out ; and Constitutionalists and those 
who called themselves Republicans, and who were also called 
Aristocratics and Anti-Constitutionalists. In this last class 
were included most of the merchants, most of the monied 
gentlemen, most of the gentlemen in the late army and many 
of the mob in towns. 

"The name of Federalists, or Federal men, grew up at 
New York and in the eastern states, some time before the 
calling of the Convention, to denominate such as were at- 
tached to the general support of the United States, in 
opposition to those who preferred local and particular 
advantages, such as those who opposed the five per cent 
duty, or who withheld their quotas of contribution to the 
general treasury of the United States. This name was taken 
possession of by those who were in favor of the new federal 
gofvernment. as they called it, and opposers were called 
Anti-Federalists. 



306 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

"Those in opposition," he continues, "seem to have had 
no pre-concert, nor any suspicion of what was coming for- 
ward. The same objections were made in different parts 
of the Continent, ahnost at the same time, merely as they 
were obviously dictated by the subject. Local ideas seem 
to have entered very little into the objections. 

"The evidence of a preconcerted system, in those who 
are called Federalists, appears rather from the effort than 
from any certain knowledge beforehand. The thing, how- 
ever, must have been easy to them from their situation in 
the great towns, and many of them being wealthy men and 
merchants, who have continual correspondence with each 
other. 

"The printers were, certainly most of them, more willing 
to publish for, than against the new constitution. They de- 
pended more upon the people in the towns than in the 
country. The townspeople withdrew their subscriptions 
from those who printed papers against, and violent threats 
were thrown out against the Antis and attempts were made 
to injure them in their business. 

"Letters were frequently intercepted, and some of them 
selected and published by the Federalists. Private con- 
versation was listened to by eavesdroppers. Pamphlets and 
newspapers were stopped and destroyed. This was the 
more easily done as most of the towns, even down to the 
smallest villages, were in possession of the Federalists. I 
can say nothing about the post office. 

"In Pennsylvania the business of ratification was ex- 
tremely hurried. The Assembly voted, if I remember 
right, to call a convention for its ratification before they 
were officially notified of its being recommended by Con- 
gress ; and the election was hurried through before it was 
generally known what was doing. Many, even in the coun- 
ties not very remote, were totally uninformed of any elec- 
tion being intended before it was finished. 

"In the state Convention" — to allow this narrative to 
anticipate somewhat — "the behavior of the Federalists was 
highly insolent and contemptuous. Out of doors, even in 
Philadelphia, their behavior was more moderate after the 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 307 

election for members of Congress, than before. The elec- 
tion had discovered a degree of strength in the Antis, which 
they did not expect and which nothing but surprize and the 
accident of extreme bad weather, which was unfavorable to 
the collecting of people scattered thro' the country, could 
have got the better of. There is one instance of violence, a 
short time before, which was not generally countenanced. 

"There was a secession from the legislature for the 
purpose of preventing measures from being precipitated. 
Some of those seceeding were made prisoners, insulted and 
dragged back, by the Sergeant-at-Arms and a mob of as- 
sistants. 

"The minds of the people in Philadelphia were highly in- 
flamed against the opposers and some of them were unques- 
tionably overawed; some of them injured. Nothing per- 
haps checked this spirit of outrage so much as similar 
instances in Cumberland county, Hutingdon county and 
others, and a discovery of the real strength of opposition. 

"The adoption of the Constitution by North Carolina 
was frequently asserted and published in pretended letters. 
Other letters were fabricated and published. . . . 

"In general, it may be said, that Col. Oswald was almost 
the only printer who published in opposition in Philadelphia 
and that he has been injured in consequence. 

"The printing presses," Justce Bryan says in conclusion, 
"were notoriously the great instruments of the American 
revolution."^ 

The constitution was completed and sent to Congress 
in New York on the 17th, Monday, and the following day 
James Wilson and his colleagues went across the hall, where 
the Assembly were in session and it was read to them. On 
Wednesday, 19th, it appeared in the press, and on the 
28th, while Congress was voting on it, a motion was made 
in Assembly to provide a ratifying convention. Justice 
Bryan was in the gallery and his lieutenants, Whitehill, 
Findlay and others fought the measure (which contained a 
blank date to be filled in later and so was not complete), but 
fought in vain a majority of 43 to 19. They adjourned to 

^ The George Bryan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 



308 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

4 o'clock, at which time all but one of the 19 were absent, 
making two less than a quorum. The Sergeant-at-Arms 
was ordered to bring back enough for a quorum and it was 
done. Public demonstration treated this as equivalent to 
the state's adoption of the constitution itself. 

Justice Bryan and his followers, as they read the instru- 
ment, saw that it not only transformed the confederation into 
a nation ; but, because it did, it would also destroy their be- 
loved old state and provincial constitution under which, 
in its original and modified form, they had lived for 
eighty-seven years, nearly a century ! The Bryan group 
had publicly warned the Federalists so early as last July 
that they would oppose any change in the Articles of Con- 
federation that would affect that state constitution and on 
October 10th, they again publicly stated that their oppo- 
sition was because it not only destroyed the Articles, but 
would "annihilate our own constitution." This was after 
Mr. Wilson, at an Assembly nominating convention on Oc- 
tober 6th, at the State House had made the first public expo- 
sition of the new instrument. The sixteen seceders had is- 
sued a statement on September 27, 1787, complaining that 
the state's delegates hadn't represented the land owners ; that 
they were all of one political party which was against the 
constitution of Pennsylvania ; that they exceeded their 
powers, which were only to amend ; that it was so bad that 
three of the convention refused to sign it ; that it was voted 
on before Congress sent it ; that the new government is too 
expensive ; that it has three branches ; that it will reduce the 
states to mere corporations ; that it gives the power of tax- 
ation to Congress; that the liberty of the press is not pro- 
vided ; that it contains no declaration of rights ; that it allows 
a standing army in time of peace ; that it abolishes trial by 
jury in civil causes; that the judiciary will destroy the state 
judiciary; that the election to both houses is for too long a 
time. Col. Oswald of the Gazetteer intimates that this 
was not written by any of the sixteen, but by a "person," 
which, with him, always meant Judge Bryan. 

But the day before Mr. Wilson's State House speech, 
there appeared in Col. Oswald's Gazetteer, the only paper. 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 309 

as Justice Bryan has said, which would allow both sides to 
be presented, a paper — the first of a series — by the chief op- 
poser of the new national constitution in Pennsylvania, and 
one of the ablest in the United States, under the title 
Cent'mel, No. I. These papers at once took rank, on their 
side, with The Federalist papers on the other. They were 
immediately attributed to Justice Bryan more than to any- 
one else, and, except the authorship of the first paper, which 
appeared in the Ga::etteer of October 5th, the day before Mr. 
Wilson's opening speech, the writer is not positively known 
even yet. Of the first paper, however. Justice Bryan's son, 
Samuel, now a man of twenty-eight, and of much natural 
ability as his father's confidential aid, has left positive state- 
ment as to his own authorship of that particular paper. In 
a letter to George Clinton he says : "I have not the honor 
of being personally known to your Excellency, but . . . 
I flatter myself that in the character of Centinel I, I have 
been honored with your approbation and esteem."^ 

It is not the purpose here to reproduce these papers, since 
Justice Bryan was, in all probability, only consultant and 
aid to his son in their preparation, for there can be as little 
doubt that Samuel Bryan was the author of them all, as that 
they expressed in fullness and accuracy the sentiments and 
convictions of Justice Bryan. The papers were not sent 
to Oswald because he was a friend of Justice Bryan, for the 
reader does not need to be assured he was just the reverse 
— a bitter enemy; but Col. Oswald was a real journalist, 

1 From a letter of Paul Leicester^ Ford, quoted in McMaster and Stone's 
Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, p. 7, footnote. Mr. Ford inti- 
mates" that the Belknap Papers II, 24, 35, give ground for thinking that 
Col. Oswald was also a writer of them, but a careful study of that refer- 
ence fails to reveal it; it refers to him as printer, not author. Centinel is 
a characteristic Bryan spelling, (not Sentinel); and his use of one of Justice 
Bryan's favorite words "artifice" is in keeping. As Samuel refers to the 
first, positively, as his, one must accept it; and yet there can be no question 
that, with the intimate relationship in public affairs between father and son, 
George Bryan's counsel and aid were a part even of that paper. As to the 
rest, there is a legal knowledge in some of them, there is no reason to 
believe Samuel Bryan possessed. And as the Federalist papers were wrttten 
by more than one, so Centinel may have answered for more than one writer. 
The papers are so uniform in expresson, however, that one must come to the 
conclusion that Samuel Bryan, as his father's representative and with his 
father's knowledge, was the author of them all. Some of the paper's use 
of epithets, already made familiar, in some cases, by Col. Oswald, cannot 
be used against Samuel's authorship, for Judge Hopkinson used "midwife" 
and other terms which Oswald had made popular. The Clinton Papers of 
the period of this letter were destroyed in the Albany capitol fire of 1911. 
Centinel, later, says that he alone is responsible for these papers, which would 
seem to settle the matter. 



310 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

with the courage of his convictions, and gave both sides the 
use of his pages. Furthermore he was a stormy petrel and 
dearly loved a fight. Centinel, No. I, begins : "Mr. Os- 
wald : AjS the Independent Gazetteer seems free for the dis- 
cussion of all public matters, I expect you will give the fol- 
lowing a place in your next. 

"To The Freemen of Pennsylvania. Friends, Country- 
men and Fellow Citizens. 

"Permit one of yourselves to put you in mind of certain 
liberties and privileges secured to you by the consti- 
tution of this commonwealth, and to beg your serious at- 
tention to his uninterested opinion upon the plan of federal 
government submitted to your consideration, before you 
surrender these great and valuable privileges up forever. 
Your present frame of government secures to you a right 
to hold yourselves, houses, papers and possessions free from 
search and seizure, and therefore warrants granted without 
oaths or affirmations first made, affording sufficient founda- 
tion for them, whereby any officer or messenger may be 
commanded or required to search your houses or seize your 
persons or property not particularly described in such war- 
rant, shall not be granted. Your constitution further pro- 
yfides 'that in controversies respecting property, and in suits 
1/ between man and man. the parties have a right to trial by 
jury, which ought to be held sacred.' It also provides and 
declares 'that the people have a right of freedom of speech 
and of nn-iting and publishing their sentiments, therefore the 
freedom of the press ought not to be restrained.' The con- 
stitution of Pennsylvania is yet in existence, as yet you have 
the right to freedom of speech, and of publishing your senti- 
ments. Flow long those rights will appertain to you, you 
(_^^--'-^ourselves are called upon to say; whether your houses shall 
continue to be your castles, whether your papers, your prop- 
erty, are to be held sacred and free from general warrants, 
you are now to determine. Whether the trial by jury is to 
continue as your birth-right, the freemen of Pennsylvania, 
nay, of all America, are now called upon to declare." 

No one familiar with Justice Bryan's writing but can 
see the Bryanesque ear-marks in both style and verbal ex- 



P H 1 L A D E L r H T A. | 

M» . Os V A 1. 1), j 

^i thi' l/tj pendent Cx.-'Mtcer fecnu frefr '''-"' d'/culjt.ri '.f | 

nl! fu'Jsc ii:jtteys, I cxfn-l you luill giue tljej'oli.>u.i'!^ u j 

j'ljcc In yi.ur >n\t. | 

To THE FKRf •%:£%( OF FEK\'S V I.VANI A. 

PERMIT one <r. y.'uifelves to pui \~>< '■■■ iri" ! -jt oei- 
taiii //■)t'/.-. J- i.-iii j'tivileges fccuret! <.; Vv/U by tiie ^iji.ti- 
tuf'on of thi' ■■>;i\'>i ':p.veaUh, and to '^:* yo.ir f'.-;:,. '. .if- 
tentir.n tJ \\\< ■ '■;>'•■•■ lied opinion up-ni :hi pl.ii i;i '.t:\ iil 
goveriirrent l ' ii.iut.i to your coniidci-'tio:., b-,-f"iE yo:i iur- 
rei:Jci' liic-fe '.r.-^t ,::.J valu ikle pri\ i!.;,'e- ip ! .jt^ 1. 1 . V,i;.r 
prtT-nf fi-ar.ie of j^'ovcniment, fccinc-; to von a iijit t-j i.'.'I 1 
^ourf« iv-'s , hoMles, pjpcrs and poiiVji-iir..; :r,{ t.'.i:-', !V.;:i.h 



BfCiJcs, \' c.tnr.ot be fuppd'ed, :!i3t the fiif* efrjy r>ti f,, j 
-iifncult a Ti'-irft, (■! fo w^li di^rlled, ;is it on^ht to L.r j — 
W" t!ir Drrvrofert plan, after a mnfire d?l.hfrjtinn, f}]tiii!d 1 
nir't thf a;>proh»rio»i "f thr; rep-ctlvr SiKrs, tiitf irijtfer 
will enH } 'out if it ft.iDld be fouqrt to he tr.iiclu with d.»n- i 
gersand inc (nveniencif j, a f'utui'' ;f"iC'-i! Convrntion beisg i 
in poilirlilon nf tr»e ol)jiri*>ion5, will ue tk'e better errablrd te ' 
plan a fiiitable eovernmpor. 
•'Who's hf.kb to basr, r ii a t would a bond- 

M A N' B E ? I 

"FrANY, SPIAK; VORHlMH^VsIoFfENED. i 

"Wnt»'s HERE SO Vl:,£, TKAl- WILL NOT LOVE ' 

HISCOUNTRY? ! 

" If any, spe ak j toK him h a v f. I cfk n t> r. d." 

C F. N T I N E L. 



A "Centinel" Paper 

by Samuel Bryan, son of Justice Bryan, 

showing beginning and ending 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 311 

pression in this paper, as well as the rest. Centinel then 
makes his appeal through a free press to juries, and takes 
up the new federal instrument. He deprecates the frenzied 
favor Philadelphia has suddenly shown for the new con- 
stitution. "If ever free and unbiased discussion was proper 
or necessary, it is on such an occasion." Critics ought to 
be encouraged, "for the science of government is so abtruse, 
that few are able to judge for themselves." They may be- 
come followers of the "artful and designing." The revo- 
lution has removed the conservative influence of older gov- 
ernments, where the spirit of the common law resists inno- 
vation. The wealthy have attributed all our woes to the 
present confederation, and by gaining the aid of two men 
[Washington and Franklin] "in whom America has the 
highest confidence," they seek domination. He thinks the 
goodness and zeal of the one has been imposed upon and 
the weakness and age of the other. He then attributes much 
to Mr. Adams' book, which he outlines, but asserts the new 
instrument is extravagantly beyond those ideas. "This 
hypothesis supposes human wisdom competent to the task of 
instituting three co-equal orders in government, and a cor- 
responding weight in the community to enable them re- 
spectively to exercise their several parts, and whose views 
and interests should be so distinct as to prevent a coalition of 
any two of them for the destruction of the third." He says 
no such government has ever existed — even Great Britain is 
only theoretically so. Other principles must be used : "I 
believe it will be found in the form of government, which 
holds those entrusted with power in the greatest responsi- 
bility to their constituents, the best calculated for freemen. 
A republican, or free government, can only exist where the 
body of the people are virtuous, and where property is 
pretty equally divided." He says "The highest responsi-//^ 
bility is to be attained in a simple structure of government, 
for the great body of the people now steadily attend to the 
operations of government, and for want of due information, 
are liable to be imposed upon." "But if, imitating the con- 
stitution of Pennsylvania, you vest all the legislative power 
in one body of men (separating the executive and 



312 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

judicial) elected for a short period, and necessarily excluded 
by rotation from permanency, and guarded from precipi- 
tancy and surprise by delays imposed on its proceedings, you 
will create the most perfect responsibility ; for then, when- 
ever the people feel a grievance, they cannot mistake the 
authors, and will apply the remedy with certainty and effect, 
discarding them at the next election. This tie of responsi- 
bility will obviate all the dangers apprehended from a single 
legislature, and will best secure the rights of the people." 

Centinel then turns his attention to the new constitution, 
Vv^hich he thinks "a most daring attempt to establish a 
despotic aristocracy among freemen, that the world has ever 
witnessed." He lights upon the "general welfare" clause, 
which, bound to "internal taxation" and a "standing army 
in time of peace," is a gigantic engine, scarcely worse than 
the over-powering judicial sections, and all clinched in mak- 
ing it "the supreme law of the land!" There, in elections, 
the states are completely ignored, a "melting down into 
one empire." The senate is to be composed of "the better 
sort," "the well-born," etc. This senate has a Delaware with 
as much influence as a Pennsylvania, and the President be- 
comes either the head of a senatorial junto or its minion. 
Here is "in practice, a permanent aristocracy." There is 
no provision for freedom of the press, no trial by jury in 
civil cases, and, worst of all, the Supreme Court has appel- 
late jurisdiction "both as to law and fact!" He says they 
claim that the only other alternative is ruin, but despotism is 
ruin. He proposes another general convention, reminding 
one of the board of Censors. 

The October election gave no hope to Centinel and his 
friends, so on the 24th he issued a second paper — Centinel 
No. II — this time in the Freeman's Journal. In this 
he opens with an eulogy of the freedom of the press, which 
together with a bill of rights and other features the new 
constitution omits. The "secrecy" of the Convention was 
dictated by the genius of aristocracy. The unequalled 
patriot, Washington, is not infallible, nor the other splen- 
did names. IMontesquieu and Dickinson have warned 
against lethargy before dangers. Consideration should 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 313 

precede approbation. He pays his respects to Mr. 
Wilson's speech of October 6th, referring to his "quibble" 
on "corporation"' as applied to states and other subjects, 
showing that the states' loss of "purse-strings" will cause 
their decay. There is a wealth of legal knowledge in 
this paper that sounds very much like Justice Bryan, 
rather than the son, so that one is inclined to feel that, 
even though the son wrote "No. I," the father must 
have written "No. II." He cites the case of loss of 
jury trials in Sweden and the attempt of Governor Golden 
of New York in 1764. He attacks the judicial structure in 
a keen way and the standing army, as well as the combi- 
nation of senate and executive in many ways, and draws 
attention to the power of the President being greater than 
that of the British King. He tells Mr. Wilson that the 
opposition is composed of a respectable yeomanry through- 
out the union ; "it comprises many worthy members of the 
late convention and a majority of the present Gongress." 
He warns against "such detestable patriots" leading into "the 
jaws of despotism and ruin." 

It would seem as though Mr. Wilson's speech of the 6th 
had Centinel's paper of the 5th in contemplation, as Centinel 
No. II did his of the 6th of October. The election of mem- 
bers to the Ratifying Gonvention on November 6th showed 
the friends of the new constitution so much in the lead that 
Centinel No. Ill appeared two days later, in the Gazetteer 
this time.^ "For the sake of my dear country," he writes, 
"for the honor of human nature, I hope and am persuaded 
that the good sense of the people will enable them to rise su- 
perior to the most formidable conspiracy against the liber- 
ties of a free and enlightened nation, that the world has- 
ever witnessed." Centinel saw with a clear eye the won- 
derful power of the United States and he was afraid of this 
new thing, as almost a half of the people of the United States 
were ; and his fears were based on the tremendous power of 
his political enemies, Mr. Wilson and the national bank 
group. He said it was a momentous occasion. The very 
men who are pushing for adoption hardest are the ones who 

1 It was written on the 5th. 



314 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

"fabricated" it; "aristocratic juntos" of "well-born" who 
tried to humble "upstart equal liberty." "What" could not 
be accomplished in the several states is now attempting 
through the medium of a future Congress," he says and 
attacks the nature of Congress and the usurpation of powers 
by the Convention, all despotic "as the Venetian aristoc- 
racy." He compares them to Machiavel and Csesar, who put 
forward form without substance. They assume to com- 
mand ratification without amendment power — a statement 
that is not unlike the present day senatorial demand for 
reservation and amendment to the League of Nations ! He 
points to the haste used, and compares favorably the Censors 
of Pennsylvania which act every seven years. He notes 
that the delegates to the Ratifying Convention were pledged 
beforehand, as though they were afraid. He again attacks 
the power of Congress, and, among other things, says : "The 
militia of Pennsylvania may be marched to Georgia or New 
Hampshire," and compares them to a Prussianized soldiery. 
He attacks the slave article and the three-fifths rule with a 
keenness to be expected from the author of the state abo- 
lition act. He wonders at the Quakers enduring it. He 
expresses regret that he has not space to say something 
on government spread over so great territory, and does not 
do so because "Brutus," a New York writer, has done it so 
well. He pleads for "this remaining asylum of liberty." 

The Ratifying Convention had been in session in the 
room above the Declaration room ten days and had heard 
Mr. Wilson's great introductory exposition and even had 
occasion to register a test vote of 44 to 23, when, on No- 
vember 30, 1787, Ceniinel IV appeared, this time again in 
the Gazetteer. In this he treats of taxation, giving a good 
resume of the history of taxation in Pennsylvania, espe- 
cially, attempting to show that the sudden and heavy tax- 
ation of 1782 and its lack of success should not be attributed 
to the confederational weakness, but the greatness and sud- 
denness of this taxation. He shows the Swiss have not com- 
plained and given taxing powers to their confederation. 
Congressional control of commerce and import he thinks is 
enough power to add to Congress, and furthermore he thinks 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 315 

that was all the people expected of the late Convention. He 
again draws attention to the secrecy and mystery which en- 
shrouded the Convention, to have this "spurious brat re- 
ceived as the genuine offspring of heaven-born liberty." 
He says "the genius of liberty is on the eve of her exit." 
He pays his respects to the various speakers and writers who 
■defend the new instrument, and pleads for a new Con- 
vention. 

Four days later, on December 4th, 1787, he again turns 
his attention to Mr. Wilson in Centinel, No. V, again in 
the Gazetteer} He thinks his speech of the 24th ultimo con- 
firmed all he, Centinel, had said against government over so 
vast a territory, and that it should be rejected on a day to be 
celebrated forever. He reiterates some of his arguments 
on "consolidation." He dwells on the danger to state's 
rights, and the powers of Congress. 

On December 12, 1787, after three weeks of debate in 
which Justice Bryan's friends Findlay, Whitehill and Smiley 
had fought Mr. Wilson, a vote again showed 46 to 23, or 
2 to 1 in favor of the new constitution. This brought out 
another paper, Centinel No. VI, also in the Gazetteer, which 
although written on the 22nd, was issued the next day after 
Christmas. "To The People of Pennsylvania." "Man is the 
glory, jest, and riddle of the world. — Pope." "Incredible 
transition ! the people who, seven years ago, deemed 
every earthly good, every other consideration, as worthless, 
when placed in competition with liberty, that heaven born 
blessing, that zest of all others ;" etc. He says "a golden 
phantom" is luring them. He says for years past "the 
harpies of power" have rung the changes on the impotency 
of Congress until they have given it the scourging power 
of despotism. He says the discussions now convince all 
that more limitations and restrictions should be put on this 
new power, so why the haste? He closes with a quotation 
from Lord George Digby in Cromwell's time. 

The next day he wrote Centinel No. VII, which ap- 
peared two days later, likewise in the Gazetteer. This is a 

^ It was written on the 30th of November, 1787. 



316 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

lamentation also and yet he hopes the conspiracy will be de- 
feated, as the people will provide for a new convention. 

Two days later, on the 29th, he wrote another, Centinel, 
No. VIII, appearing in the Gazetteer on the next day after 
New Year's Day. Here he draws a beautiful picture of our 
land of liberty and the conspirators thinking they had for- 
gotten stamps and tea. They will find differently ! He 
thinks the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, New York and 
New Hampshire may yet save the day. He warns against 
the monopolizing spirit of the federalist leaders in Penn- 
sylvania and all but mentions Wilson and Morris. 

A week later, on January 8, 1788, Centinel No. IX ap- 
peared, opening with: "You have the peculiar felicity of 
living under the most perfect system of local government in 
the world ; prize then this invaluable blessing as it deserves.'^ 
The proof of it is that the ambitious and profligate have tried 
to destroy it ever since its establishment, but the "well-born" 
have so far been defeated. "The present conspiracy is a 
continental exertion of the zvell-horn of America to obtain 
that darling domination, which they have not been able to 
accomplish in their respective states." He says 6 out of 8 
of the late state delegates in the Convention were enemies 
of the state constitution, and the advocates of the new 
despotism are the same men. He gives examples of their 
desperation in various parts of the country and shows great 
fear of the outcome. 

Then it was that Justice Bryan's fellow-jurist of the 
High Court of Errors and Ajppeals, Judge Francis Hop- 
kinson, entered the arena under cover of anonymity and 
began to lampoon the earnest lover of the old Pennsylvania 
constitution, on the very next day in the Gazette. His skit 
was entitled The New Roof. He says skillful architects 
were called in to repair the roof of a certain mansion and 
they found a half-dozen defects: general weakness, thir- 
teen rafters not united, rafters warped and not properly 
joined, wooden pegs (paper money) used instead of nails, 
the cornice bad, and because the roof was flat it was tramped 
upon and abused. They decided to make a new one. In a 
conference "James [Wilson], the architect, who had been 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 317 

one of the surveyors of the old roof, and had a principal 
hand in forming the plan of the new one," was there. 
"Margery the midwife," he says, "who had got a com- 
fortable apartment in the house" [Justice Bryan — using 
Oswald's old epithet for him] who "had unavoidably ac- 
quired an influence in the family," as soon as she heard it, 
"put on her old red cloak" and went out to get her servants 
at work against it, choosing William [Findlay], Jack 
[Smiley] and Robert [Whitehill] to do the objecting; 
namely, that there was no bill of scantling [rights], no trap 
door for safety [freedom of the press], that it had battle- 
ments [army], the old twelve ornaments [trial by jury], 
were not retained, the rafters too firmly bound together 
[invasion of state rights], and finally that it was so self- 
sufficient it might hang unsupported in the air when the 
rest of the house had crumbled [consolidation] ! "James, 
the architect," answered these objections, and while he was 
doing so, a "harmless lunatic" at large was secured by 
"Margery" and set to making alarms [Philadelphiaensis in 
the Gazetteer, a Professor Workman of the University, a 
teacher from Dublin]. He then gives a caricature of this 
writer's style : "The new roof ! the new roof ! Oh ! the new 
roof ! shall demagogues, despising every sense of order and 
decency, frame a new roof? . . . Oh ! the days of Nero! 
Oh, for the ultima ratio regiim! (He got these three Latin 
words from Margery). . . . Blow the trumpet; sound 
an alarm. . . . Do I exagerate? No, truly. Europe 
Asia and Africa, deny it if you can. . . . Curse on 
the villian ! . ' . . Oh ! ah ! ah ! oh !" 

Three days after the appearance of this skit, namely, on 
January 12, 1788, Centinel, No. X, appeared, as usual in the 
Gazetteer, showing great encouragement at the awakening 
of the people, through the freedom of the press. "James 
[Wilson], the Caledonian, lieutenant-general of the myr- 
midons of power, under Robert [Morris], the cofferer, who, 
with his aide-de-camp, Gouvero [Gouverneur Morris], the 
cunning man, has taken the field in Virginia," has called a 
conference in alarm, as he saw this uprising. "Such a scene 
of bustle, lying, and activity, was never exhibited since the 



318 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

days of Adam," in order to secure dominance by "the well- 
born few" — "well-born" being captured in great glee from 
Mr. John Adams' book, where he had used it untactfully. 

Centinel's quiver was well filled and he was industrious, 
for four days later, the 16th, he issued No. XI, in which he 
cites Attorney-General Luther Martin of Maryland as 
proof of his contentions, and pays his respects to the 
"hobgoblin" which has been brought out by "the deranged 
brain of Publius [Federalist], namely, the anarchy which 
will follow rejection of the new instrument. He says, as 
Lord Kaims does, that civil war is preferable to despotism. 
He points to suppression of newspaper circulation as show- 
ing desperation on the other side. 

At this Judge Hopkinson, on the 19th of January, 1788, 
issues a mock intercepted Centinel letter to someone in the 
country. In this he has Centinel complain that, while he 
is issuing letters as fast as he can, the states unanimously 
or by large majorities are ratifying the new constitution ; that 
Connecticut has just done so by a vote of 127 to 40. So 
that the opposition had better accept it and join the majority. 
About the same time Judge Hopkinson issued another skit, 
purporting to be an account of a meeting of the Wheel- 
barrow Society in the prison yard, at which Centinel was 
chosen President and Luther Martin, Vice-President, with 
Philad el phiaensis as Secretary. 

This was followed, on the 23rd, by Centinel, No. XII, in 
which the word "conspirators" is applied to the Federalist 
leaders, who are imposing with cunning on "our illustrious 
chief." He again quotes Luther Martin, and refers to the 
silencing of the Pennsylvania Herald, discontinued on the 
same day. He praises Mr. Findlay's "powerful arguments" 
and regrets they had not a wider circulation and refers to 
the suppression of the short-hand debates of the Ratifying 
Convention. 

A week later, January 30th, Centinel No. XIII was is- 
sued, in which he says the conspirators have prevented the 
"arguments of a Findlay, a Whitehill and a Smiley, that 
bright constellation of patriots" from circulating. He again 
refers to "Dr. Puff" [Rush], and says "the chief reliance 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 319 

is on James the Caledonian, who can to appearance de- 
stroy all distinction between liberty and despotism, and 
make the latter pass for the former, who can bewilder truth 
in all the mazes of sophistry, and render the plainest propo- 
sitions problematical. He, chameleon-like, can vary his ap- 
pearance at pleasure, and assume any character for the pur- 
pose of deception. In the guise of Conciliator, in the Inde- 
pendent Gazetteer, he professes great candor and modera- 
tion, admits some of the principal objections," etc., and in 
the figured character of a Freeman he combats the minority. 
Such devotion to despotism makes him most suitable to be- 
come Chief Justice of the new government! Here he would 
be both judge and jury! He thinks organization should be 
instituted in every county to protect liberty. 

Just the day before the sixth state, Massachusetts, rati- 
fied, namely, on February 6, 1788, Centinel put forth No. 
XIV. Here he quotes Luther Martin at length as con- 
firmation of his contentions. This is an able pappr. He 
attacks Mr. Wilson, by name, the Post Office, and the sup- 
pression of newspapers. His No. XV of February 22, 1788, 
he shows great hope that the remaining seven states will 
save the country and he had very fair ground for his hope, 
since they were so long in deciding. On the 26th, his No. 
XVI, he again criticises the new constitution and attacks 
Wilson and Morris, while in his No. XVII on March 24th, 
he attacks General Mifflin and Robert IMorris with such 
charges that the latter replied on April 8th. In this also he 
defends Professor Workman from the "Little Fidler's" 
[Hopkinson] attacks. The No. XVIII, on April 8th, is one 
of his longest and most characteristic papers. There is the 
charge of scheming and design over the whole land and an 
analysis of what is being done in the various sections. 
"Those who favor the system of tyranny," he says, in analyz- 
ing the situation in Pennsylvania, "are most numerous in the 
city of Philadelphia, where perhaps they may be a considera- 
ble majority. In the most eastern counties they compose 
about one-fourth of the people, but in the middle, northern 
and western counties not above a twentieth part, so that, 
upon the whole, the friends of the new constitution in this 



320 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

State are about one-sixth of the people. He holds in con- 
tempt the enemies of Centinel, and even prophesies honor to 
the Centinels in future and the reverse to the conspirators. 
He says he has avoided being known, because his personality 
has nothing to do with the question at issue. This was on 
April 9, 1788. 

Just a week before this, on April 2nd, the Gazette pub- 
lished two intercepted letters of Justice Bryan's, written on 
March 26th, to Mr. John Ralston of Allen Township, North- 
ampton County. No one can read them, after reading 
Centinel, and not feel confident that most of that series were 
from the same pen. "Last Tuesday," says Justice Bryan, in 
one of the letters, "the post from New England brought sad 
tidings for some folks here. The Convention of New 
Hampshire, it seems, by 70 against, and 40 for, have ad- 
journed till 17''' June. Had the final adjustment of the new 
system been put, it would have been rejected by a great ma- 
jority. The friends of it, therefore, to let it fall easily, pro- 
posed the adjournment, and the others gave way. This dis- 
aster we consider as fatal to the business. So do its advo- 
cates here, and they are in the dumps, and some of the mem- 
bers of the General Convention are apologizing for their 
conduct. Before this news came, the party was up in the 
skies, as their behavior seemed to express. Yet their suc- 
cess at Boston was so moderated by the propositions for 
amendment, which, however superficial, broke the facility of 
the new Constitution. Besides, the president of the Boston 
Convention, Hancock, has written our Assembly, sending 
their doings and the amendments, and desiring that this state 
would adopt similar amendments. On the whole, as New 
York is not likely to concur ; nor Virginia, tho' General W. 
lives there ; nor Rhode Island ; and as N. Carolina Conven- 
tion meets not till 17*'' July, and will be much swayed by 
Virginia ; as Maryland is much divided, if not on the whole 
against ; I have no doubt there will be another Convention. 
Georgia acceeded to it because pressed by an Indian war, 
and wanted aid immediately. 

"Failing," Justice Bryan continues, "the conspirators 
against equal liberty will have much deceit and wicked con- 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 321 

duct to answer for. They have seduced the post officers 
to stop all newspapers from state to state, that contained in- 
vestigation of their plans, so the dissent of the minority of 
Pennsylvania did not get to Boston before their convention 
arose. Every little town furnished a flaming account, like 
those of Carlisle, Bethlehem, &c., asserting how much the 
people of their place and neighborhood approved the new 
plan. These were circulated and reprinted from Georgia 
to New Hampshire, with parade. This deceived the people 
into a notion that there was a general approbation. In Vir- 
ginia, at this moment, from the suppression of intelligence 
and by false letters, it is generally supposed the opposition 
in Pennsylvania had vanished ; and at Boston, the news of 
the disturbances at Carlisle, reaching Boston before the Con- 
vention there arose, the whole was confidently denied. As 
the Convention of Massachusetts was finishing, a vessel is 
made to arrive at port 15 miles off, with account that N. 
Carolina had adopted, tho' that Convention sits not before 
July. Again, as the Convention of New Hampshire was 
near finishing, this falsehood is newly published at Newport 
in Rhode Island, and another vessel pretended, to secure 
another adoption ! These are but a specimen of those arts 
and inventions. But a lying tongue is but for a moment. 
The people everywhere will see and feel their frauds. Yet 
these are generally the doi#gs of the first men in many of 
the States. I say nothing of the fraud of calling conven- 
tions hastily in all the New England States, save Rhode 
Island, which has called none, in New Jersey, in Pennsyl- 
vania, Delaware. In the Southern States (all except Geor- 
gia) the calls of conventions have been deliberate and dis- 
tant; so in New York. I am glad of the prospect we have, 
because it will prevent the danger of confusion and blood- 
shed. For if more states had been nominally led into the 
plan, while the body of the people in many of them were 
still averse, civil war must have ensued, as the conspirators 
would have endeavored to set their scheme in motion, with- 
out funds to support the necessary standing army. This 
danger now seems to be over, for which we ought to be 
thankful. 



322 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

"In Cumberland county," he continues, "all are against 
it, except a small group in Carlisle, and a few, very few, 
scattered in the country. This group, in October, wrote and 
censured their county representatives for attempting the 
breaking up of the late General Assembly, to prevent the 
calling of the people of any county east of Bedford to elect 
Convention in nine or ten days ; with other matters favoring 
the new plan. These were paraded in the Carlisle Gazette 
as the sense of the people, and by the party published here 
and elsewhere. The county resented it, and warned these 
men not to repeat the artifice. Yet on the 25'^ December the 
same people attempted to rejoice on occasion of the adop- 
tion by the Convention of Pennsylvania. They were hin- 
dered ; some blows ensued. Next day the same men, armed, 
made another essay ; they were overpowered, and the effigies 
of two leading members [Wilson and McKean] of the 
Convention were burned in contempt. Upon this, a letter 
with many affidavits was dispatched to Mr. [Chief Justice] 
McKean, pressing his warrants for 20 persons, charged with 
riots ; among others Justice Jordan. The business being 
irksome, Mr. McKean, alleging it was indelicate for him 
to act when he was ill-used, persuaded Mr. Atlee, and 
laborred me, to send up our warrant. I represented the 
danger of risquing insult to our precept, advising delay, and 
the rather, as no hasty steps had been taken to bring the 
city rioters to justice. Mr. A[tlee] and Mr. Rush sent up 
their warrants. It lay some time in Carlisle, unexecuted, to 
bring the accused to submit and ask pardon. Nothing being 
done, however, in this way, about the 2&-^ of February the 
sheriiT was set to work. Eight or nine refusing to give bail, 
they were imprisoned. By the last accounts from Harris- 
burgh, large numbers were assembled, from York and 
Dauphin, as well as Cumberland, to set the prisoners at 
large. This gives much uneasiness to the conspirators here. 
Even the Chief Justice, 'tis said, had before the news came 
consented to drop the prosecution, as the members of Coun- 
cil feared the event. But he wrote Mr, Atlee too late, if he 
has written. We hope no farther mischief will ensue, tho' 



I 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 323 

the conspirators in Carlisle told Mr. McKean in their letter, 
they feared that their dwellings would be pulled down. 
Here, in October, we were forced to hold our tongues, lest 
well dressed ruffians should fall upon us. At this day, the 
case is otherwise. Yet many are still silent, lest, the new plan 
being adopted, they might hereafter be ruined for oppos- 
ing. Since it was commonly safe from immediate attack, 
some of us have been open and avowed, and risqued all 
the malice of these men. The common people are latterly 
too much of our opinion to hurt us. Indeed, none but 
gentlemen mobs have been active in Philadelphia. 

"In Montgomery" [County], he proceeds, "the consent 
of the county is against the plan, the friends of it are silent; 
[in] Berks very few who favor it ; the same in Dauphin. In 
the town of Lancaster there is a party, but few elsewhere 
in the county. In York, the opposers are very numerous. 
In Franklin they are the great body of the people. In Bed- 
ford and in the overhill counties very few are for it. Of 
Northumberland I can say little. Our friends in Bucks 
and Chester [counties] are much increased. The Quakers 
are changed generally. The solid Quakers here greatly dis- 
like it; but they do not intermeddle. Their young people 
favor it, and in this city, Baltimore, New York, Boston &c. 
there is a majority for it; most so in Boston. Shays insur- 
rection has been made a great engine of terror to dispose 
people of that country to receive chains, if the western coun- 
ties can be kept down. Shays and his adherents were roused 
to what they did by excessive taxes; perhaps contrived to 
dispose the New England States to receive the new system, 
to which they would otherwise be averse. 

"Since writing the foregoing," the letter proceeds, "we 
have accounts from Carlisle, that about 1000 armed men 
appeared there, and demanding of the sheriff to open the 
prison, set at liberty the persons charged as rioters, and 
burned the commitment. The inhabitants of the town, in 
the meanwhile, kept close within their houses, and the 
armed men soon went away without doing anything further. 
. . . The peculiar reason why the party for the new 



324 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

constitution is large here, is the supreme influence of the 
Bank, the weight of Mr. Morris, etc."^ 

This was in April, 1788. Let us stop for a moment to 
see how Justice Bryan, in the midst of this contest, could 
quietly talk with his colleague. Justice Atlee, when he 
chose, and never a word about it : "Having a little business 
at Lebanon respecting the University," he writes him on 
May 14th, in this city, "I propose to take that place in [on] 
my way. This will not so well admit of meeting you at 
Middletown on the Swatara, as you hinted. I hope to ob- 
tain the favor of the company of Mr. Rittenhouse, the 
Treasurer, who goes up to Chambersburgh to bring certain 
lands, which were mortgaged in the Loan Office of 1773, to 
sale. This will, should I be favored with his company, 
oblige me to accommodate to his wishes, which will be to 
take the journey easy. I expect to leave home the 
ZZ"*^ at farthest. 

"We have no very material news here," he continues. 
"The accounts of prosperity in England are very striking. 
The national funds, scarcely six millions in 1776, have been 
improved to nearly 18. Meanwhile interest of money is very 
low. Ireland, too, shares in the advantage. A bounty on 
wheat brought by land to the capital has excited such an agri- 
cultural spirit, that she is no longer obliged to import bread- 
corn; but actually supplies herself, and has to spare for ex- 
portation. Hence the legal rate of interest is on the point 
of being reduced from six to five percentum. In both coun- 
tries ready money abounds. 

"The war in the eastern parts of Europe draws away 
the wheat of Poland, and the Southern nations, deprived of 
this granary, apply to us for wheat. Something considera- 
ble is doing in the shipping of wheat ; more would be if ships 
were most plentiful. This last circumstance keeps the price 
from rising, as other it might. If business like this had 



^ It will be remembered that Patrick Henry said: "I look at that paper 
[the new national constitution] as the most fatal plan that could possibly 
be conceived to enslave a free people;" that James Monroe attacked it "as 
a dangerous government;" that Thomas Jefferson opposed it until it waa 
amended; and that Edmund Randolph would not sign it at all. For more 
elaborate treatment of this and other features of the constitutional contest, 
see The Life and WrUings of James IVlison, by Burton Alva Konkle, Vol. I. 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 325 

not made some stir, we should be very dead here. The 
merchants and traders are now doing pennance for the 
extravagant transactions since the peace, by which they 
have beggared themselves and stripped the country of its 
specie. But this visitation of the afflictive kind will gradu- 
ally restore us to better circumstances. Nothing else could. 
Economy and industry will be forced upon us. I am told 
that executions, in this part, for land begins to lessen. 

"A dreadful occurrence at New Orleans proves advan- 
tageous to us. That wooden town has been almost con- 
sumed by fire. The Governor has opened the port to 
strangers in order to procure relief. I am told that our 
vessel from thence has lodged 30 thousand dollars in the 
bank. There are also others for necessities. It is thought 
that houses ready framed will answer as merchandise. 

"The unfortunate paper money of 1785 is sold at 33^ 
discount; and I see no chance of relief for awhile. If it 
should grow worse we might hope for an interposition. But 
I apprehend it will rather improve a little, as all will now 
seek it to pay their taxes at the advantage of lessened value. 
For this purpose the brokers have agents in every part to dis- 
pense out these bills of credit to the people. The city taxes 
and those of the county of Philadelphia are payable in it. Be- 
sides the quantity, already reduced to about £106,000, will 
be further reduced by cancelling £25,000 in course of this 
year, as provided by the funding act; and the fees of the 
Land Office, during the year, may sink £7000. The last 
emitted paper of N. York is but 7 per cent discount for 
specie yet larger in value and has smaller taxes to operate on. 
Here the underworkings of the Bank, jealous of interference 
with her paper, has been a fatal stab ; and the illegal draughts 
of Council on the Treasury for £128,000 in favor of Con- 
gress, beyond the sums provided by the Legislature, has 
given occasion to so much exchanging of these bills for 
specie, in order to carry oflf the value, that the mischief has 
been highly increased. This, too, has injured the public 
creditors doubly, who have not all yet had the interest due 
in October last. Dollars grow so scarce latterly — and 
they are preferable money to export — that the brokers 



326 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

have formed a rate of exchange between them and other 
specie."^ 

This was in May, 1788, and at that time Justice Bryan 
seemed justified in his diagnosis of the situation given in his 
April letter ; but in May, the 23rd, South Carolina came in 
about 2 to 1 for it, and about a month later, June 21st, New 
Hampshire adopted it by a much smaller margin, of about 
5 to 4, which, being the ninth state to come in, established 
the new instrument. The announcement was made in Con- 
gress at New York on the 25th. The following day Vir- 
ginia came in, at about 8 to 7, making the "tenth pillar" for 
"the new roof." After the news of South Carolina came, 
the Federalists of Philadelphia began preparations for proba- 
bly the most remarkable Fourth of July celebration the city 
has ever witnessed, even to this day, and its symbolical 
artistry was due chiefly to Judge Francis Hopkinson. As 
an illustration of notable features of the great symbolical 
procession, the Constitution was represented by a car in 
the form of an eagle, resting on a base marked The People 
— a car twenty feet long with wheels eight feet high ! In 
this sat the red-robed members of the bench of the Supreme 
Court of Pennsylvania, Chief Justice McKean, Justice Atlee, 
Justice Rush — all, indeed, but Justice George Bryan, who 
could not bring himself to celebrate the sure sign of the fall 
of his beloved old state constitution, for which he had fought 
for over a quarter of a century. By a curious irony, im- 
mediately behind this car was a double file line of ten men 
on foot representing the "ten pillars," or states, which had 
adopted the new Constitution, headed by James Wilson, for 
Pennsylvania, and Col. Thomas Robinson, for Delaware, the 
first two states to ratify! How could Justice Bryan sit 
in such public state, in such a place, after all he had fought 
and feared ! Celebrate the fall of his deepest concern for 
over a quarter of a century ! For he well knew this was 
merely a preface to the chapters, yet to come, that would 
picture the destruction of his beloved state constitution and 
the laws he had built upon it; and also the democratic sys- 
tem of government in which he believed. And one does 

^ Atlee MSS., at the Library of Congress. 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 327 

not have to go far for present day illustration of Justice 
Bryan's unique position : to this lover of state pre-eminence 
and direct popular control, the closely articulated scheme of 
checks and balances, created by the new constitution of the 
United States, was very similar to the League of Nations 
in the eyes of Senators Lodge, Knox and others of to-day, 
who see in it a tyranny over nations and a danger to national 
liberty and the constitution of the nation, just as Justice 
Bryan saw a threat against the constitution and liberties of 
Pennsylvania. And, as shall appear, he was also like them, 
in insisting that, if the new instrument is bound to be ac- 
cepted, then there shall be several amendments ; not, as the 
distinguished Senators have desired, amendments of 
emasculation, but merely amendments of safety. 

Justice Bryan and his party were very moderate com- 
pared with Virginia and New York, who, while accepting, 
made most extravagant demands, such as recommending a 
bill of rights of twenty items and the same number of 
amendments, and even — as in the case of the former — 
practically avowing the right of secession ! Justice Bryan's 
followers over the western part of Pennsylvania took cour- 
age during the summer and did just what James Wilson's 
disciples had done in 1776 and 1783, in the matter of a state 
constitution, namely, called for a conference to demand a 
new convention. The Conference was called for September 
3, 1788, and at Harrisburg, Robert Whitehill of Cumber- 
land county being the lieutenant most active in arranging 
for it. They sent out letters as early as July 3rd in agita- 
tion for it, and deputies to it were elected over the state all 
during July and August ; and on that day thirty-three mem- 
bers answered roll-call, and they represented every county 
in the state except Montgomery and York. They chose 
Blair McClenachan of Philadelphia, chairman, and John 
A. Hannah of Harrisburg, secretary, with Justice Bryan 
the most distinguished of them and their real leader. A 
western man, later to become famous, Albert Gallatin, sub- 
mitted resolutions, looking to a revising convention, "to pre- 
vent a dissolution of the union, and to secure our liberties 
and those of our posterity." They wanted the Assembly 



328 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

to ask Congress to call it, as New York had requested, and 
urged all friends of the movement to form committees of 
correspondence, just as they did in 1774 and '5. They also 
called for an inter-state conference like the present inter- 
county one. The conference did not adopt the elaborate 
resolution, but issued an account of the meeting, the names 
headed by Justice Bryan ; and as he did most of the work 
in assembly in association with many of these men, it is 
natural to infer that he did so in this case. 

The results were admirable, and showed how thoroughly 
Justice Bryan could accept defeat, once it was decided. 
"The ratification of the federal constitution having formed 
a new era in the American world, highly interesting to all 
the citizens of the United States," reads the resolutions 
adopted and carrying that fine poise that was so striking a 
characteristic of Justice Bryan when he chose, "it is not less 
the duty than the privilege of every citizen, to examine with 
attention the principles and probable effects of a system on 
which the happiness or misery of the present, as well as 
future generations so much depends. In the course of such 
examination, many of the good citizens of the state of Penn- 
sylvania have found their apprehensions excited that the 
constitution in its present form contains in it some principles 
which may be perverted to purposes injurious to the rights 
.of free citizens, and some ambiguities which may probably 
lead to contentions incompatible with order and good gov- 
ernment. In order to remedy these inconveniences, and to 
avert the apprehended dangers, it has been thought expedi- 
ent that delegates, chosen by those who wish for early 
amendments in the said constitution, should meet together 
for the purpose of deliberating on the subject, and uniting in 
some constitutional plan for obtaining the amendments 
which they deem necessary. 

"We the conferees assembled, for the purpose afore- 
said, agree in opinion : 

"That a federal government only can preserve the liber- 
ties and secure the happiness of the inhabitants of a coun- 
try so extensive as these United States ; and experience hav- 
ing taught us that the ties of our union, under the articles of 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 329 

confederation, were so weak as to deprive us of some of 
the greatest advantages we had a right to expect from it, 
we are fully convinced that a more efficient government is 
indispensably necessary ; but although the constitution, pro- 
posed for the United States, is likely to obviate most of 
the inconveniences we labored under, yet several parts of it 
appear so exceptionable to us, that we are clearly of 
opinion considerable amendments are essentially necessary. 
In full confidence, however, of obtaining a revision of such 
exceptionable parts by a general convention, and from a de- 
sire to harmonize with our fellow citizens, we are induced 
to acquiesce in the organization of the said constitution. 

"We are sensible that a large number of the citizens of 
this and the other states, who gave their assent to its being 
carried into execution, previous to any amendments, were 
actuated more by the fear of the dangers that might arise 
from delays, than by a conviction of its being perfect; we 
therefore hope they will concur with us in pursuing every 
peaceable method of obtaining a speedy revision of the con- 
stitution in the mode therein provided ; and when we reflect 
on the present circumstances of the union, we can entertain 
no doubt that motives of conciliation, and the dictates of 
policy and prudence, will conspire to induce every man 
of true federal principles to give his support to a measure,, 
which is not only calculated to recommend the new consti- 
tution to the approbation and support of every class of citi- 
zens, but even necessary to prevent the total defection of 
some members of the union. 

"Strongly impressed with these sentiments, we have 
agreed to the following resolutions : 

"1. Resolved, That it be recommended to the people of 
this state to acquiesce in the organization of the said gov- 
ernment; but although we thus accord in its organization, 
we by no means lose sight of the grand object of obtaining 
very considerable amendments and alterations, which we 
consider essential to preserve the peace and harmony of the 
union, and those invaluable privileges for which so much 
blood and treasure have been recently expended. 



330 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

"2. Resolved, That it is necessary to obtain a speedy re- 
vision of said constitution by a general convention. 

"3. Resolved, That, in order to effect this desirable end, 
a petition be presented to the legislature of this state, re- 
questing that honorable body to take the earliest opportunity 
to make application for that purpose to the new Congress. 

"The petition proposed is as follows : 

"To the Honorable Representatives of the Freemen of 
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in General Assembly 
met, this Petition and Representation of the subscribers 
humbly show. 

"That your petitioners possess sentiments completely fed- 
eral ; being convinced that a confederacy of republican states, 
and no other, can secure political liberty, happiness, and 
safety through-out a territory so extended as the United 
States of America. They are well apprised of the necessity 
of devolving extensive powers to Congress, and of vesting 
the supreme legislature with every power and resource of 
a general nature ; and consequently they acquiesce in the 
general system of government framed by the late federal 
convention ; in full confidence, however, that the same will be 
revised without delay: for, however worthy of approbation 
the general principles and outlines of the said system may 
be, your petitioners conceive that amendment in some parts 
of the plan are essential, not only to the preservation of such 
rights and privileges as ought to be reserved in the respective 
states, and in the citizens thereof, but to the fair and un- 
embarrassed operation of the government in its various de- 
partments. And as provision is made in the constitution 
itself for the making of such amendments as may be deemed 
necessary, and your petitioners are desirous of obtaining the 
amendments which occur to them as more immediately de- 
sirable and necessary, in the mode admitted by such pro- 
vision, they pray that your honorable House, as the Repre- 
sentatives of the people of this Commonwealth, will, in the 
course of your present session, take such measures as you 
in your wisdom shall deem most effectual and proper, to 
obtain a revision and amendment of the Constitution of the 
United States, in such parts and in such manner as have been 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 331 

or shall be pointed out by the conventions or assemblies of 
the respective States ; and that such revision be by a general 
convention of representatives from the several states in the 
union. 

"Your petitioners consider the amendments pointed out 
in the propositions hereto subjoined as essentially necessary, 
and, as such, they suggest them to your notice, submitting to 
your wisdom the order in which they shall be presented to 
the consideration of the United States. 

"The amendments proposed are as follows, viz : 
"I. That Congress shall not exercise any powers whatso- 
ever, but such as are expressly given to that body by the 
constitution of the United States ; nor shall any authority, 
power or jurisdiction, be assumed or exercised by the execu- 
tive or judiciary departments of the union under color or 
pretense of construction or fiction. But all the rights of 
sovereignty, which are not by the said constitution expressly 
and plainly vested in the Congress, shall be deemed to 
remain with, and shall be exercised, by the several states in 
the union according to their respective constitutions. And 
that every reserve of the rights of individuals, made by the 
several constitutions of the states in union to the citizens 
and inhabitants of each State respectively, shall remain in- 
violate, except so far as they are expressly and manifestly 
yielded or narrowed by the national constitution. 

"Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 3 
"II. That the number of representatives be for the pres- 
ent one for every twenty thousand inhabitants, according to 
the present estimated number in the several states, and 
continue in that proportion till the whole number of repre- 
sentatives shall amount to two hundred ; and then be so pro- 
portioned and modified as not to exceed that number till the 
proportion of one representative for every thirty thousand 
inhabitants shall amount to the said number of two hun- 
dred, uc: o 

Section 3 

"III. That Senators, though chosen for six years, shall 
be liable to be recalled or superseded by other appointments, 
by the respective legislatures of the States at any time. 



332 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

"Section 4 

"IV., That Congress shall not have power to make or 
alter regulations concerning the time, place and manner of 
electing Senators and Representatives, except in case of neg- 
lect or refusal by the State to make regulations for the pur- 
pose, and then only for such time as such neglect or refusal 
shall continue. 

"Section 8 

"V. That when Congress shall require supplies, which 
are to be raised by direct taxes, they shall demand from the 
several States their respective quotas thereof, giving a rea- 
sonable time to each State to procure and pay the same ; 
and if any state shall refuse, neglect, or omit to raise and 
pay the same within such limited time, then Congress shall 
have power to assess, levy, and collect the quota of such 
State, together with interest for the same from the time of 
such delinquency, upon the inhabitants and estates therein, 
in such manner as they shall by law direct, provided that 
no poll-tax be imposed. 

"Section 8 

"VL That no standing army of regular troops shall be 
raised or kept up in time of peace, without the consent of 
two-thirds of both Houses in Congress. 

"Section 8 
"VII. That the clause respecting the exclusive legislation 
over a district not exceeding ten miles square, be qualified by 
a proviso that such right of legislation extend only to such 
regulations as respect the police and good order thereof. 

"Article I, Section 8 
"VIII. That each State respectively shall have power to 
provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia 
thereof, whensoever Congress shall omit or neglect to pro- 
vide for the same. That the militia shall not be subject to 
martial law, but when in actual service in times of war, 
invasion or rebellion ; and when not in the actual service of 
the United States, shall be subject to such fines, penalties, 
and punishments only, as shall be directed or inflicted by the 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 333 

laws of its own state : nor shall the militia of any State 
be continued in actual service longer than two months under 
any call of Congress, without the consent of the legislature 
of such State, or, in their recess, the executive authority 
thereof. 

"Section 9 
"IX. That the clause, respecting vessels bound to or from 
any one of the States, be explained. 

"Article 3, Section I 
"X. That Congress establish no court other than the 
Supreme Court, except such as shall be necessary for de- 
termining causes of admiralty jurisdiction. 

"Section 2, Paragraph 2 

"XL That a proviso be added at the end of the second 
clause of the second section of the third article, to the fol- 
lowing effect, viz. : Provided, that such appellate jurisdiction, 
in all cases of common law cognizance, be by writ of error, 
and confined to matters of law only ; and that no such writ of 
error shall be admitted except in revenue cases, unless the 
matter in controversy exceed the value of three thousand 
dollars. 

"Article 6, Paragraph 2 

"XII. That to article six, clause two, be added the fol- 
lowing proviso, viz. : Provided always, that no treaty which 
shall hereafter be made, shall be deemed or construed to 
alter or affect any law of the United States, or of any par- 
ticular State, until such treaty shall have been laid before 
and assented to by the House of Representatives in Con- 
gress. 

"Resolved, That the foregoing proceedings be committed 

to the chairman for publication." and it appeared in 

the Independent Gazetteer on September 15, 1788. 

Eight of the thirty-three who put forth the plea for re- 
vision were of the minority in the Ratifying Convention who 
had issued reasons for their dissent on the previous Decem- 
ber 12, '87. It will be illuminating to compare the latter 



334 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

with those of the Conference at Harrisburg. Briefly, the 
dissentients of December avowed that the Wilson amend- 
ment of 1783 was the beginning of complaint of lack of 
Congressional powers, but people only expected mere re- 
vision of the Articles, not their destruction. Secrecy was 
objected to; haste in ratifying also; methods of the federal- 
ists objected to; they wanted: religious liberty protected; 
trial by jury in federal courts; and especially in capital 
cases ; excessive bail be forbidden ; serving of unsupported 
warrants forbidden ; freedom of speech and press protected ; 
state militia and right to bear arms protected; freedom to 
hunt ; limit Congress' taxing power to imports and duties ; 
Congress shall not interfere with state elections and Repre- 
sentatives shall be chosen annually; the State shall control 
the militia; federal government shall be forbidden to go be- 
yond the limits of its powers ; judges shall be independent 
and the executive shall have an advisory council and the 
three powers shall be kept separate ; treaties shall not inter- 
fere with constitution or laws; judiciary powers must be 
confined to purely national objects. They agreed to the 
constitution only on condition that these amendments be 
made. It will thus be seen, that while a great many of 
their fears had been removed, the Conference's twelve pro- 
posals were, at bottom, somewhat of the same general tenor 
of apprehension, as those of the dissentients of the Ratify- 
ing Convention, but not with the same emphasis. It will be 
well to keep these in mind for comparison with the amend- 
ments finally to be adopted. 

Justice Bryan and his friends pushed their agitation 
harder than ever, if possible, now, with a view to capturing 
the Congressional election to insure measures for amend- 
ments to the constitution, either by convention or Congres- 
sional submission. Ccntinel resumed his papers, and, as 
they proceed, one cannot but feel that both father and son 
were responsible for them. No. XIX appeared just a 
month after the Harrisburg Conference, on October 7. 
1788, as usual, in the Gazetteer: He says that when he wrote 
his last in April, he had no doubt that the new constitution 
would be rejected. Amendments were implied in the man- 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 335 

ner of the adoption in most cases, however. He doubts the 
"well-born" conspirators' sincerity and he warns "ye patri- 
ots of America" to take possession of the First Congress; 
urges them to support the new government in order to get 
the amendments. In November, 1788, Centinel No. XX 
appeared in the Freeman's Journal, in which he warned 
again against the "well born junto," "who ten years ago 
could not muster more than eighty-two devoted adherents 
in the state of Pennsylvania."^ He describes how they 
came to their present power : "The first consideration that 
this review presents is the policy by which the junto have 
attached to their party the weighty interest of the Quakers 
and Tories. In the late arduous contest with Great Britain, 
wherein the lives and fortunes of the Whigs were dependent 
upon the uncertain issues of the war, and in the course of 
which so much barbarity and devastation were committed 
by the British ; it is not to be wondered at that those persons 
who were disaffected to the common cause, who refused to 
share the dangers or contribute to the expenses of the war, 
and on the contrary were justly suspected to be aiding and 
assisting a cruel and vindictive foe, should, in consequence 
thereof, incur the resentment of the Whigs and be treated 
rather as enemies to their country than as fellow citizens. 
Hence the test-Iazi'. which was made to draw the line of 
discrimination, and to exclude from our councils those who 
were inimical to our cause : hence too the violence and se- 
verity with which the disaffected were treated ; which has 
laid the foundation of the most implacable resentments and 
lasting prejudices. 

"The junto, considering that persons so situated and un- 
der the influence of such feelings, would make zealous ad- 
herents if they would be flattered with hopes of protection 
from what they deemed oppression and persecution, and 
still more so if they could be flattered with the pleasing 
prospect of a repeal of the test-law, and thereby 
having it in their power to assert their rights and vindicate 



^ This first appeared in the Freeman's Journal, where Centinel got a 
name wrong, so he reprints it correctly, later than No. XXI, in the Gazetteer 
of November 13, 1788. 



336 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

their sufferings; the junto accordingly made the most Hb- 
eral offers of their services to the disaffected, and as their 
disHke and dread of the Whigs was the cement of union, 
the basis upon which the well-born [still reminding Mr. 
Adams of his unfortunate slip !] meant to build their med- 
itated schemes of profit and aggrandisement, Galen [Dr. 
Rush], and such minions were employed to aggravate the 
feelings and confirm the resentments of the disaffected by 
such misrepresentations of the principles and designs of the 
Whigs as to keep the former under continual apprehension 
of violence and rapine ; . . ." This led the liberal 
Whigs to vote to repeal the test laws, and the "junto" op- 
posed it, thus losing that element in their constituency, who 
all voted for Justice Bryan for Censor to succeed Col. Miles. 
This led the "junto" to afterward repeal the test laws 
themselves. Centinel says : *T was always against the 
policy of continuing the test-law one hour longer than was 
absolutely necessary. . . ." He cites the Irish treatment, 
as a warning that he appreciated. He says "another 
great engine" has been the Bank, which he says was sub- 
servient to the "well-born" junto. He says destruction of 
every patriot was their plan, and Galen was the most ma- 
lignant, boasting that he destroyed the "patriotic Reed." 
Those are the men who have made the new constitution, and 
are now on the way to get hold of the "purse-strings" of the 
nation. He warns against the Lancaster conference to 
nominate candidates. He says: "the man who confessedly 
has had the principal share in the framing of a constitu- 
tion" which needs great amendments ; the man who in every 
stage of its adoption has been its greatest advocate" [James 
Wilson] — this man is the chief deputy of Philadelphia to 
Lancaster ! 

Centinel, on November 8th, 1788, issues No. XXI in 
the Gazetteer giving an interesting account of that move- 
ment in France by which Montesquieu's writings had re- 
vived the local parliaments to resist despotism, causing the 
despots to create a single general parliament, or Court 
pleuiere, remote from the people. He thinks the junto 
despots are wonderfully familiar with the French methods 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION Z2,7 

of despotism — a national legislature and national courts to 
swallow up state legislature and judiciary. He again speaks 
of Galen and also of "James the Caledonian, the principal 
framer and advocate of the new constitution." 

On November 14, 1788, No. XXII, he issues a defense 
against attacks by certain writers, notably Lucullus, in the 
Gazette, and attributes it to Dr. Rush. In this he defends 
the test-law, and the legal tender law of the early days 
of the war as necessary war measures ; besides they were 
made on Congressional recommendation, every state gov- 
ernment followed it, and the junto party re-enacted some 
of them. He also defends the militia law — this being one 
of his most able papers, especially as a rebuttal one. He 
wins his case. 

He gives attention to Robert Morris and the Congres- 
sional investigation in his No. XXIII of November 20, 1788, 
and he made it so powerful that it drew a reply from the 
one-time Financier-General, which was an unusual breaking 
of his rules. His No. XXIV, on the 24th, dealt with Mr. 
Morris' reply ; and with this, his very able and well-written 
papers close for a time, since the Congressional election, 
which they were designed to influence, occurred two days 
later.i 

In order to follow the influence of the Harrisburg Con- 
ference which voiced the general apprehension of the dis- 
sentients of the Ratifying Convention, and the papers of 
Centinel, one must anticipate events somewhat, at this point. 
The new national government at New York was getting in 
working order during the summer season of 1789, but the 
persistence of North Carolina and Rhode Island, in staying 
out of the union, and the equal persistence in all, who, like 
the Harrisburg Conference, sought amendments, caused 
Congress, on September 25, 1789, to submit ten amendments 
to the new constitution ; and it will be well to note how 
nearly like those of the Harrisburg Conference and the 
dissentients of the Ratifying Convention they were : 



1 McMaster and Stone, in their Pennsylvania and The Federal Consti- 
tution, evidently thought the_ Centinel papers closed wth this one, which, 
however, is not the case, as will appear in the succeeding chapter. 



338 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

Of those amendments, Article I concerns freedom of 
religion, speech, press and petition ; Article II, right of 
people to bear arms not to be infringed; III, on quartering 
of troops in a house ; IV, security from unreasonable search 
and seizure ; V, protection in criminal trials and compen- 
sation for property ; VI, civil rights protected in criminal 
trials ; VII, civil rights in civil suits ; VIII, excessive bail 
and punishments prohibited ; IX, provision for reserved 
rights; and, finally, judicial power not to extend to suits 
against a state. It will be observed that these are largely of 
the nature of a bill of rights, or limiting to executive, legis- 
lative and judicial powers. It will also be observed that they 
do not include the Harrisburg Conference's recommenda- 
tions: (I) interpreting the line between State and national 
jurisdiction; or (II) proportional representation; or (III) 
Senatorial recall; or (IV) interpreting of national power 
over election: or (V) interpretation of national taxing 
power; or (VI) interpretation concerning a standing army; 
or (VII) control of a District of Columbia; or (IX) that 
about vessels; or (X) that limiting power to create courts j 
or (XI) their qualifications; or (XII) interpreting the re- 
lation of treaties to constitution and laws. So that the 
dissentients' bill of rights fears were cared for more than 
the interpretative fears of the Harrisburg Conference. 
This is significant of Judge Bryan's apparently more ac- 
curate understanding of the nature of the constitution^ 
consequently reduced fears as to the reserved rights, and 
anticipation of constitutional interpretation and constitu- 
tional law, as became a jurist. It also illustrates how much 
more widely the reserved rights features, or reserved limita- 
tions of the three great powers of government, were empha- 
sized in the other states ; and how much more closely Con- 
gress followed the dissentients' fears, as expressed at the 
Ratifying Convention, than the non-ofiicial expressions such 
as those of the Harrisburg Conference. 

As a most interesting judicial experience of Judge 
Bryan's occurred in this year, 1788, and especially as it af- 
fords an opinion of his, the only one known to us among 
all he delivered from the bench, the constitutional story may 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 339 

be interrupted for a moment. That stormy petrel of the 
Philadelphia press, Eleazar Oswald, in a controversy with 
one, Andrew Brown, was cited to appear before the Chief 
and other Justices in contempt of court proceedings because 
of what he had published in a certain case and appeared on 
Monday, the 14th of July, 1788. On the following day 
Chief Justice AIcKean ordered his imprisonment for a 
month and a small fine. Oswald, of course, became ex- 
ceedingly bitter toward Chief Justice McKean and during 
the October election excitement, made, one day while under 
the convivial effects of some of his London Coffee House 
beverages, threats of bodly injury against him. He was 
arrested on October 6th, at the instance of the head of the 
Supreme Court and appeared before Justices Atlee, Bryan 
and Rush. The case was tried on the 9th before Justice 
Bryan, who, on the 11th, gave his decision: 

"The matter depending before me is a charge against 
Colonel Eleazer Oswald, of threatening to beat or kill the 
Honorable, the Chief Justice, because he had in his official 
capacity adjudged the said Eleazer to fine and imprison- 
ment, for contempt. It is the Chief Justice who makes this 
complaint, and thereupon calls for surety of the good be- 
havior to be demanded of Colonel Oswald. For this pur- 
pose a warrant has been issued by the three Assistant Jus- 
tices of the Supreme Court to the Sheriff of the county of 
Philadelphia, his deputy and deputies, directed, for the 
bringing before the same assistant Justices, or one of them, 
the said Colonel Oswald, to show cause, why he, the said 
Eleazer Oswald, should not find surety accordingly to the 
Commonwealth, towards all the liege people thereof, and 
especially towards the Honorable Thomas McKean, Esquire, 
LL. D. Chief Justice of this Commonwealth. 

"As to the law on this subject, it appears by the train 
of authorities and decisions upon, and since the English 
statute of the 34^'' of Edward, the first. Cap. PS that the 
charge against Colonel Oswald falls within the jurisdiction 
of a Judge of the Supreme Court, as to binding him to the 
good behavior. Before this statute this preventive mode 
of justice was confined to Judges sitting in court, and was 



340 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

exercised after conviction of an offender by his peers, as 
part of the sentence passed on him. And although Dr. 
Burn (see his excellent book, entitled The Justice of the 
Peace and Parish Officer, under the proper head) has shown 
by great strength of argument, that single Justices of the 
Peace have, by a most liberal and undue construction of this 
criminal law, gradually obtained large jurisdiction concern- 
ing the good behavior, and much discretionary authority 
therein, which did not belong to any Keeper of the Peace at 
common law, nor which was intended to be devolved to the 
Justices of the Peace by the makers of that statute (see Bar- 
low, page 524), yet they have obtained it, and they have ex- 
ercised it for some centuries past ; and however proper and 
useful Dr. Burn's cautions on this head may be to gentle- 
men, who act as Justices of the Peace, yet it appears to me 
that nothing less than a legislative declaration can now di- 
vest these magistrates of the authority. It was said, that 
the act of the General Assembly, of the late province, 
passed in 1705, concerning binding to the peace, and the 
good behavior, has supplied and superceded the statute, and 
limited the jurisdiction to the case therein mentioned; but 
the constant course in Pennsylvania, since that period, has 
l3een to follow the English precedents and practice under 
the statute above mentioned. Besides, the modern com- 
mission of the peace in England, first drawn in the year 
1590, expressly supposes and assigns this power to the 
Justices of the Peace, and each of them severally. 

"It must be granted, that the binding to the good be- 
havior upon this statute (which seems to have been made to 
suppress riots and disorders of disbanded soldiers) of per- 
sons accused and greatly defamed for frequenting bawdy 
houses ; for being the supposed father of bastard children ; 
for habitual drunkenness ; idle vagabonds and the like, with- 
out the verdict of a jury, and at the discretion of a Justice 
of the Peace, although held out by writers on law of great 
character, should dispose the Justices to caution, to which 
indeed the measured words of Judge Blackstone, on this 
subject, tends, who introduces what he says thereon, it is 
holdcn, that surety of the good behavior may be required 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 341 

of such persons. To show how authority is extended by 
practice, the modern usage of issuing warrants to apprehend 
felons before they are indicted, contrary to the ancient com- 
mon law, may be instanced. Lord Coke, in his fourth in- 
stitute, page 177, revolts against the innovation; but Lord 
Hale, who wrote in the reign of Charles the second, indi- 
cates this assumed authority of the Justices, as well estab- 
lished by long practice, and as essential to justice, so that 
it ought to be supported. Hence, probably, it is from 
ancient usage, that grand jurors are still sworn to keep 
secret the charges brought before them, lest the accused, 
who in former times were not yet arrested, should get notice 
of the prosecution and flee from justice. P* Hale's His- 
tory 579; 2°^ of same, 80, 107 and 110; 2"'' Hawkins 85. 

"It is remarkable that after Dr. Burn has so ably in- 
vestigated this act of Parliament, and the judicial expo- 
sitions of it, and has shown the extraordinary extent given 
in practice to the statute, he should subjoin, as he does, 
forms and precedents conformably to the modern usage 
under it. 

"In the case of Colonel Oswald, threats of the most ex- 
travagant and dangerous nature, touching the Chief Justice 
and other persons, have been proved, and these threats have 
been uttered with great vehemence. One witness says that 
Colonel Oswald, in his passion, went so far as to declare 
that if he did not get satisfaction in a legal way for his sup- 
posed wrongs, he would raise an insurrection in the state, 
or to that effect. Such an outrage is of the worst example, 
and calls for animadversion and restraint: It is true that 
these threats have been denounced in the hour of intoxi- 
cation and frantic passion, and that they were not believed, 
by those who heard them, to be the effect "of premeditation; 
nor to be such as would be executed. But it is observed, on 
the other hand, that in the less guarded hours of inebriety, 
and passion, the designs of violent tempers are disclosed. 

"However, as the facts proved against Colonel Oswald, 
though early known, were not actually complained of until 
the sixth instant ; as no new threats, nor any tendency to 
the violence, already threatened, have been shown ; nor even 



342 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

charged; as the complainant doth not manifest any appre- 
hension of danger from Colonel Oswald, but the contrary ; as 
security for the good behavior includes security for the 
peace and more, and is in its nature more easily forfeited ; 
and, moreover, as Colonel Oswald's means are known to be 
small, and the circumstances of the accused, in cases like 
this, are very important, I call upon him to become bound, 
himself, in £300 lawful money of Pennsylvania, and that he 
find sufficient surety bounds for him in £300, of like money^ 
for his good behavior towards the Commonwealth and every 
citizen thereof, especially towards the Honorable Thomas 
McKean, Esquire, Doctor of Laws, Chief Justice of this 
state, from this time until the IS*'^ day of August next. 
11 October, 1788."^ 

As this is the only full opinion and decision of Justice 
Bryan's, delivered from the bench, that has been preserved, 
it fortunately shows an excellent example of his learning, 
his spirit and his courage. Even Colonel Oswald, while he 
objected to those "constructive contempts," as he called them, 
treated Justice Bryan's decision with eminent respect, 
which was quite unusual with him ; but, attention may now 
be turned to other events. 

The new national constitution was now a fact. The elec- 
tion of national representatives had occurred in Pennsyl- 
vania on November 26, 1788, two days after the last of the 
Ccntinel papers had appeared. The Presidential electors 
were chosen something over a month later, on January 7, 
1789, and about three months later, on March 3rd, 
the Pennsylvania Assembly refused to concur in the pro- 
posal of that of Virginia for a new amending convention ; 
and, of course, the Harrisburg Conference appeal was no 
more successful in that body. The new national govern- 
ment went into efifect the next day, March 4th, at New York ; 
and on the same day the Assembly at the Philadelphia 
State House compelled the University of Pennsylvania to re- 
store, so far as it could, the College of Philadelphia — an- 
other blow to the regime of Justice Bryan, although, essen- 
tially, as will presently appear, it affected the University but 

''■Independent Gazetteer, November 3, 1788. 



BRYAN AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION 343 

little. The new Court House just built on the northwest 
corner of State House Square was, on the same day also, 
offered to the new national government as a capitol. Finally 
on the 24th of the same month — only three weeks later — 
came the final blow to the Bryan structure, built up in Penn- 
sylvania in the last more than a dozen years, namely, the 
call of the Assembly for a new state consitutional con- 
vention in a vote of 41 to 16, that knelled the downfall of 
his beloved constitution, which, in its old and its modified 
forms, had existed for eighty-eight years, and, as men of all 
parties testified, had enabled Pennsylvania to become one of 
the first three states in the union. The downfall had not yet 
occurred, however, and Justice Bryan and his friends did not 
propose to let it occur without fighting it, inch by inch. 
The new political science of individual sovereignty, which 
leased a revocable, limited sovereignty to both state and 
nation, and reserved the residue to itself, in a balanced, self- 
restrained government of checks and balances, might be en- 
throned in the national government; but the old colonial 
mode of direct action, by a single-chambered legislature, 
should still stand in Pennsylvania, if he had the power to 
keep it. 



CHAPTER XX 

The Fall of the Old Constitution of Pennsylvania 
OF 1701-1776, AND His Death, 1789 

When, on the same day, the new national government 
began in New York, March 4, 1789, the University of 
Pennsylvania was compelled by the State Assembly to re- 
store what had been taken from the College of Philadelphia, 
Justice Bryan was still a member, ex o-fficio, of the board of 
trustees of the University, though he was no longer Treas- 
urer, as he had been for so many years. Almost a year be- 
fore, namely, on March 25, 1788, at the instance of ex- 
Provost Smith, the charter and minutes of the old college 
had been ordered into the Assembly's hands. On August 
25th, Trustee Bryan asked that a special attorney be ap- 
pointed, and a complete overhauling of the finances was re- 
ported, showing the net income to be about £2,217. It 
showed the Provost getting £500 and the professors from 
£300 to £350, the whole salary list covering £2,886. Debts 
were owing to the University of £5,356, and the board can- 
vassed the desirability of reorganizing the finances and 
providing a man to give his time to it, as both Financial 
Secretary and Treasurer ; indeed, it was voted, but recon- 
sidered and on September 15th, voted again, whereupon 
Justice Bryan ceased to be Treasurer. He was not pres- 
ent at but four meetings of the board during that year ; and 
it might well be explained by his judicial labors combined 
with one of the greatest periods of political activity of his 
life, as has already been described. 

In 1789, however, he was again at the old hall at Fourth 
and Arch Streets pretty regularly, and on February 4th, was 
on a committee on a faculty letter. He was not present on 
March 4th, when news came of the Assembly's order of 
restoration, but he was on the committee to find new build- 

344 



CONST] TUTIOxN AND DEFENDER PASS 345 

ings and that on separation of the property of the College 
trustees from that of the University. 

For a University to be suddenly ordered out of its old 
buildings — although by no means to surrender all of its 
property, since that w^as so largely composed of confiscated 
estates — would ordinarily be a paralyzing experience. 
Fortunately for the University this was not the case. 
The American Philosophical Society, which had rented the 
old Church School House in Second Street on March 16, 
1770, but, war disrupting their arrangements, in 1780 
were using Carpenters' Hall. While here James Wilson was 
a Vice-President and Justice Bryan a councillor. On 
February 6, 1784, they began to look for funds to buy 
ground on which to build, and on March 19, 1784, de- 
cided to ask for a site on State House Square, and even 
asked the Library Company, later, to join them, having in 
mind a site on the Sixth Street side. Just a year later, March 
28, 1785, a site was granted, but on the Fifth Street side, and 
by June 7th building plans were approved. The funds 
came slowly, but by this time, four years later, when the 
College buildings were ordered restored, it was nearly 
finished, and the Society was canvassing for tenants to pro- 
vide an income, since they themselves proposed to use but 
two rooms. Here was a superior new structure right next 
to the State House and City Hall all ready for the Uni- 
versity and on March 5th — the next day after Assembly 
action in the State House, the University ordered the com- 
mittee to at once lease it.^ On the 10th, the University board 
received a request from the College board, at Dr. Franklin's 
house, for a turning over of the property, by committees, 
and also received the news from Justice Bryan's committee 
that the new Philosophical Society building had been ar- 
ranged for. This included all except two rooms on the 
south side, second floor, for five years, at £85 annually. 
The old "Lodge" in Lodge Alley was also hired on the 11th 
of March ; and by the 14th the committee was ready to turn 
over the old college buildings and enter the new University 

^ The University secretary, having in mind the Sixth Street site ap- 
plication, wrote in the minutes "their house in 6*'" Street," mistakenly. 



346 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

building on State House square, on the following Thursday, 
so that delivery was reported by the 20th of March. 

On April 8, 1790, reorganization began and one of the 
first acts of the University board at the new structure was to 
formulate a greeting to the new President, General Wash- 
ington, on the 15th, who was on his way to New York. 
This greeting to the first head of the new "Federal Empire" 
was signed by all the board, including Justice Bryan ; and on 
the 20th of April they went to the City Tavern, where he 
stopped, in Second Street, and presented the address and 
received the President's reply — both of which were spread 
on the minutes. During this year Justice Bryan was present 
at board meetings about every other meeting. He was pres- 
ent on June 25th, when gowns were first ordered for students 
and at the commencement held in the German Church on 
July 30th, as well as the board meeting in which real estate 
matters were reorganized. On October 31st, he took part 
also in the reorganization of the Medical School and on De- 
cember 19, 1789, when Dr. James Hutchinson was chosen 
to succeed Dr. Benjamin Rush, resigned. The University 
graduation in July, following (1790), included, Bachelor of 
Arts, 9 ; Doctors of Medicine, 12 ; Masters of Arts, 8 ; Hon- 
orary Masters of Arts, 2; and Doctors of Divinity, 2. 
At the same time it was ordered that a degree of Bachelor 
of Medicine should close the course, with the presentation 
of a thesis to convert it into the degree of Doctor of Medi- 
cine. This commencement, also, was held in the German 
Church in Race street. It will thus be seen that, although 
the Wilson "junto," as Centinel called it, had its property 
back, the University was prospering much as if nothing had 
happened, up to the close of 1790, thus far considered ; and, 
indeed, in its new location had somewhat increased prestige ; 
for by this time the new national government was in the 
same square, at the farther corner, and President Washing- 
ton located at Market, below Sixth Street. 

Justice Bryan's activities, however, at this time, were de- 
voted far more to political education, than in that repre- 
sented by the University. The Assembly, on March 20, 
1789, had issued an "Address To Citizens of Pennsylvania" 




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CONSTITUTION AND DEFENDER PASS 347 

to the effect that if people wished, they would pro- 
vide a mode for calling a convention for revision of the 
state constitution, without regard to the septennial Council of 
Censors. Four days later they did provide a way by which, 
on October 13th, when Assemblymen were elected they could 
elect delegates, which, when done, would be met by Assem- 
bly provision for expenses and other details of it. When 
these activities began to take form late in the summer, 
Centinel, Relived, No. XXV, appeared on August 27th, in 
the Gazetteer, as usual. This time it was to take part in 
the Madisonian efforts in Congress to provide the ten amend- 
ments for submission to the people. He feels called now, 
as he "was the first person who apprized the public of the 
defects and dangers of the new constitution, and was greatly, 
if not wholly, instrumental in occasioning that enlightened, 
virtuous, and formidable opposition, to the implicit and un- 
qualified establishment of this government, which nothing 
could have rendered ineffectual, but the magical influence 
of the name of Washington" which diverted people from 
examination. He says it is very flattering to him that his 
fearless attack had won these amendments. He also asserts 
that "the author of the Centinel wrote without concert with, 
or assistance by any other person ;" and yet every defect he 
had pointed out had been recognized and was now about to 
be provided for. This would seem to confine the Centinel to 
Samuel Bryan's authorship alone; but, it would not affect 
the fact that he was his father's voice; and that does not 
detract from the credit of his ability, in being so intelligent 
as to be able to do so. He now warns against an expanded 
national "Civil List," in capital letters. He proposes to in- 
sist on more amendments than are proposed ; and still clings 
to his previously expressed ideas in favor of a less central- 
ized government. He also proposes to have something to 
say about national judicial appointments in Pennsylvania. 

On the 29th of August, No. XXVI appears, signed, as 
usual, "Centinel, Revived." This time he praises "the in- 
imitable abilities and overflowing eloquence" of "a Madi- 
son," who is prevailing over "the insolence of federalism" 
in proposing amendments. The danger of "consolidation" 



348 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

he thinks not yet provided for in the amendments proposed, 
and he quotes James Wilson's own admissions, but not in 
their connection ; and he reiterates some of his own earlier 
arguments. He again, also, refers to the judiciary section 
and sees complete destruction of the powers of the state 
judiciary. No. XXVII, on September 4, 1789, shows great 
dissatisfaction with the proposed amendments, and depre- 
cates the tendency of the people to view this consolidation 
without alarm just because President Washington heads it. 
Then he brings out a new point of danger, in no provision 
for rotation in office, which would keep one man or set of 
men from remaining in office too long. He cites the old 
constitution of Pennsylvania as a model in this respect. He 
also uses his enemy's old argument against mixture of the 
three powers, or two, in one body, using the national senate 
as violating this law, for it is legislative, executive and 
judicial in certain respects. The executive, too, should be 
absolutely separate ; but a standing army so independent of 
the people is not to be endured. 

The power of Congress over the militia is a great danger, 
too. No. XXVIII follows closely, as if in order to influence 
Congressional action in adding more to the ten amendments. 
This appeared on September 8, 1789, only four days later 
than the last issue. Here he drops the national issues, as 
though they were so nearly settled, as they were on the 15th, 
and turns to "this daring measure" of annihilation of the 
Pennsylvania constitution "at once ;"^ They seem intoxi- 
cated with power, he thinks, and recalls how this "junto" 
has sought for a dozen years to destroy this old, but new 
constitution. People well knew what to expect, for the 
first session of the Council of Censors of 1783, which the 
people repudiated, made plain what they proposed. The 
address of the dissentients of the present year, in Assembly, 
Avas calculated to head it off, but the conspirators have be- 
come more shrewd and have secured petitions in such num- 
bers as to be ground for their new scheme. And yet 6000 

^ Dr. Benj. Rush, in his diary, Sept. 15, 1789, says: "The motion for 
this measure [the state constitutional convention] originated last spring in 
my house on an evening which James Wilson, Gerardus Wynkoop, Thomas 
Fitzsimmons and William Maclay spent with me." 



CONSTITUTION AND DEFENDER PASS 349 

petitioners out of 69,000 ought not to be enough to do so. 
He asks that it be left to the Censors, who meet only next 
year, 1790, and avoid the dangerous expedient of calling a 
convention, as he wants to prevent them doing on October 
13th. He sees swollen state and national establishments 
both rising. He says "James the Caledonian" tried to change 
the election laws for their purposes, but was defeated. 

The next day, September 9th, another is issued — No. 
XXIX. And as the issuing of the ten national amendments 
is impending, he devotes himself to their inadequacy, noting 
three or four of them, that are Machiavellian in their decep- 
tive nature ; indeed that Italian would be lost in admiration 
at these successors of his who make his own schemes mere 
"piddling devices." He also warns against these "Caesars 
of America." Quickly upon the heels of No. XXIX 
comes No. XXX on the following day. In this he 
shows how currency will be drawn away from distant 
parts of the empire to the seat of government — of course 
having in mind New York or Philadelphia as that seat — and 
he cites London and Paris as examples. How much worse 
in a great land, beside which France is but a province ! He 
is not for dissolving the union, but so amending this consti- 
tution as to give Congress only such power as is absolutely 
necessary. 

Two days later, the 12th, Centinel's XXXI number ap- 
peared, and with a fervor of alarm against the "Junto's" As- 
sembly's course, in calling a new convention to destroy the 
state constitution, that he calls it "high treason." "They 
ignore the plain provision of the Council of Censors in 
constitutional revision. This was a careful provision of "the 
authors of our invaluable constitution," to prevent legislative 
infringement on fundamental law, such as this. "These 
sworn guardians of the constitution" overturn that instru- 
ment and turn from it to less than 10,000 petitioners out of 
69,000 for their justification. So can a constitution be sub- 
verted ! On the 15th No. XXXII exclaims at a constitution 
being blown away by the mere breath of a legislature! 
59,000 people to have their government overturned at the 
voice of 10,000 ! He cites the conspiracy case in Northamp- 



350 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

ton County for illustration. He waits until the 28th of Sep- 
tember to issue No. XXXIII and tells of what a row his 
exposures of the Northampton case has caused about the 
heads of the "city junto." He calls upon the people to pro- 
tect themselves: "Where," he exclaims, "is the pusil- 
animity that is so crouching, which will not rise into heroism 
at the recital of the magnanimity and overwhelming force 
of French patriotism, before which aristocracy, with its for- 
midable phalanx of partizans and numerous legions of 
mercenary soldiers, was instantaneously routed and dis- 
graced. He tells them to take warning from France and, 
while it can be done, keep the aristocrats from assuming 
the power that makes the French horrors a necessity. He 
says absence in the country caused his delay in replying to 
critics. 

These things brought libel charges against Editor Os- 
wald in July, '89, in the local court, which was put forward 
to the supreme Court. It will suffice at this point, since 
Centinel himself will tell the story more vividly, later, to 
say that when the court were taking action on it, Justice 
Bryan, alone, of the four, refused to sign, the case being set 
for November 19, 1789, when neither side's attorneys could 
or would appear.^ 

Centinel becomes historical in his thirty-fourth letter, 
which appeared on October 28th. A brief sketch of the 
"junto" of aristocracy and the "well-born" — Mr. Adams' 
term which he ever keeps in evidence — since 1776. He says 
a great mass of Pennsylvanians were inclined to avoid a 
break with the British and tried to prevent establishment 
of a rebel government. Nothing but intimidating decision 
by the Whigs would have kept the colony from remaining 
British. Then was the constitution framed by the Whigs, 
because the timid and disaffected had withdrawn them- 
selves. Then the timid "junto" tried to prevent the opera- 

1 Mrs. George Bryan, on November 30, 1789, in a letter to her son, 
George Jr., who is at his Uncle Arthur Bryan's in Dublin, tells of the 
ravages of influenza: "Indeed I have been alarmed for your father, as it 
clung to him long, and affected his eyes, so that he could scarcely see; 
else he would write you more fully." She speaks of Aunt Newport at Water- 
ford- — evidently her husband's sister; also Aunt Betsy and Nancy and Uncle 
Samuel; and speaks of Henry Street, Dublin, as the family home. — Papers 
in possession of Striickland Kneass, Esq., Philadelphia. 



CONSTITUTION AND DEFENDER PASS 351 

tion of the constitution, and kept it up even in the face of in- 
vasion. Then they sought place in the government without 
an oath of allegiance to the constitution. Then they got 
possession of the government by various means and tried 
to make the constitution detestable by not recognizing its 
provisions. Finally some of their allies like the Quakers 
saw through it and called them down. Now the "junto" 
is trying to tear down that constitution and erect one that 
will more easily do their will, by making it conform 
to the federal constitution. When they are attacked they 
abridge the freedom of the press with the charge of libel. 
Then follows his account of the case against Oswald, 
before mentioned, although he mentions no names. This, 
he says, raises a new doctrine of "constructive contempts," 
which is to supersede trial by jury. He says the printer was 
confined in jail during the hot season, on the ground of hav- 
ing published something relative to a case in court. "Here," 
says Centinel, in one of the most eloquent tributes to Justice 
Bryan that can be found, so lofty indeed that it may well 
have been the product of filial devotion, — "Here I cannot 
help expressing my most feeling regret, that a character who 
stood high in the opinion of his country [McKean], and for 
whom I have the sincerest attachment, should be so blinded 
by his resentments of newspaper attacks, as to become sub- 
servient to the junto in bereaving us of that first of blessings, 
a free press. I v^ish, for his own good, as well as the pub- 
lic liberties, that he had been governed in his conduct on this 
occasion by the enlightened patriotism and magnanimity of 
Judge Bryan, who, notwithstanding he has been more vilified 
and traduced than any man living, through the press, yet he 
he has ever stood forth the firm and inflexible assertor of 
the liberty of the press, from a thorough conviction, founded 
on the experience of the ages, that there is no human 
tribunal so virtuous, independent and perfect, as to be in- 
trusted with the power of drawing or applying the line of 
distinction between the licentiousness and the salutary free- 
dom of the press ; and from a like persuasion that the incon- 
veniences of the former is a small, but absolutely necessary 
price for the inestimable benefits of the latter; because in- 



352 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

tegrity will generally triumph over the most envenomed 
shafts of malice and calumny and return them with accele- 
rated force upon the base trangressors ; and because the 
scourge of a free press is the most effectual restraint upon 
the venal and ambitious, the most powerful vindicator of the 
injured and oppressed, and the greatest bulwark of every 
privilege, whether of a civil, religious, or political nature. 

"This gentleman" [Justice Bryan], he continues, "is him- 
self a striking instance that virtuous innocence has nothing 
to apprehend from the liberty of the press ; it is conscious 
guilt alone that ought [to] and does abominate the enlight- 
ened eye of inquiry, and therefore ever labors to extinguish 
it ; whereas innocence courts the light as the element in 
which she appears to the greatest advantage. Judge Bryan 
has been for a series of years the constant object of the most 
rancorous abuse, levelled at him by the most ingenious, art- 
ful as well as malignant of parties. He, from the sublime 
heights of virtuous and exemplary integrity, looked down 
with ineffable contempt on all their noisy, impotent malice ; 
and, having the approbation and support of conscious inno- 
cence, he enjoyed an uninterrupted tranquility of mind 
amidst the slanderous and calumniating shower that poured 
on his character. And he, moreover, had the satisfaction to 
find he has been as little injured in the opinion of his fellow 
citizens, as he was in his own feelings, which his enemies 
have been so thoroughly convinced of, that they have ceased 
abusing him for a twelve months past. Judge Bryan, with 
the greatest possible provocation, has too enlightened a 
patriotism to be exasperated into a concurrence in destroy- 
ing the liberty of the press." Centinel evidently feels 

grieved at the course of Chief Justice McKean, and his final 
word of warning is against the three leaders of the new 
state convention, though not naming them, but meaning for 
two, Wilson and perhaps Lewis, but for the third, evidently 
McKean, his pen refuses to characterize so freely — 
"Friendship arrests my pen, and will not permit me to 
])roceed." 

With this tribute to his father, Justice George Bryan, 
Samuel Bryan, as Ceuthiel, seems to have closed his famous 



CONSTITUTION AND DEFENDER PASS 353 

papers, on the eve of the new state constitution convention, 
that would undoubtedly destroy the old, but new constitu- 
tion, which Justice Bryan had so long and so ably defended. 
The overwhelming majority that followed Mr. James Wil- 
son, in that body, meant that the old order in Pennsylvania 
was gone for good ; and when the new constitution was put 
forth for public consideration, the new political science, of 
which Justice James Wilson was the creator, more than any 
other man, was as fully expressed in the constitution of 
Pennsylvania, as in that of the United States. This instru- 
ment was worked over all winter, and, after a recess in early 
summer, was finally signed and adopted on September 2, 
1790. Two months later the new national and state govern- 
ments were in operation at State House square, and on the 
evening of December 15th, Professor Justice James Wilson 
began at the hall of the College of Philadelphia, at Fourth 
and Arch Streets, scarcely two squares westward of Justice 
Bryan's home, the first scientific exposition of the new 
American political science. Fifteen days later, on Decem- 
ber 30th, 1790, Justice Bryan met with the board of trustees 
of the University at State House square, and joined in con- 
gratulations to Governor Thomas Mifflin on his election 
under the new constitution — a meeting which proved to be 
the last one for this trustee, who had led in giving it its state 
university character,^ 

Fifteen days later, January 15, 1791, while Justice Bryan 
was sitting with a full bench of the Supreme Court for the 
last time, the trustees of the College of Philadelphia at 
Fourth Street were sending a letter to the University board, 
saying that it was said that a disposition on the part of the 
University existed in favor of a union of the two institu- 
tions. This, with no concurrence of Justice Bryan, for he 
could no longer be present, was considered by the University 

^ Professor James Wilson was chosen Professor of Law in the new insti- 
tution also, but he never acted in that capacity, tho', techncally, he held 
the chair until his death. So neither Wilson nor Bryan had to do with 
the new University after the union. 

Chief Justice McKean and Justices Bryan and Rush, on December 20, 
1790. report that: "In half the counties there has not been a single con- 
viction for any capital or other offense," "nor a single indictment" — and 
in the rest of the counties far less than before; and that the people "are 
contented with their present constitution," etc.— The McAllister Papers, Ridg- 
way Library. 



354 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

on February 5th, and, although denying that the subject of 
union had ever been considered, they would now appoint a 
conference committee. A meeting was held on February 
24th between the two institutions' representatives with suc- 
cess. The University graduated 33, exclusive of honorary 
degrees, and had 223 students, mostly advanced, the largest 
number since 1780. The negotiations continued during the 
year and by September 19th an equal division of each in- 
stitution in board and faculty, but a retention of the Uni- 
versity name, and the Governor as, ex officio, president of 
the trustees, left the stamp upon it that Justice Bryan was 
the chief instrument in placing there in 1779—80. The act of 
union and creation of a new institution was passed Septem- 
ber 30th, and the first board meeting was held on November 
8, 1791, in the office of the Secretary of the Common- 
wealth; but neither of the two men. Justice Bryan or Justice 
James Wilson, were a part of the new board of trustees. 
Yet each left his mark upon the University of Pennsylvania, 
forever; but it is now the "University of Pennsylvania" be- 
cause of the great high-minded Whig of the revolution. Jus- 
tice George Bryan. 

As has been said, this valiant Whig legislator, executive 
and jurist, in his red robes of office in the arched Supreme 
Court room at the State House, with Chief Justice Mc- 
Kean, and Justices Atlee and Rush, sat for the last time 
in a regular session, during the January term, from the 3rd 
to the 22nd, inclusive. For, since the previous month, De- 
cember 7, 1790, when the new constitution of Pennsyl- 
vania went into effect. Justice Bryan, by action of the 
schedule, had been a Justice of this bench, with all the rest 
of the court, under the constitution against which he had 
made so long and tenacious a fight.^ There had been no 



^At the first session of the new Pennsylvania Senate, Samuel Bryan 
was one of the candidates for Clerk of that body, but Timothy Matlack was 
chosen by a majority, receiving only 9 votes to Bryan's 7, out of 17 voting. 

Samuel Bryan lived at 163 Arch Street in 1793, according to a con- 
temporary Philadelphia directory, as "Gentleman;" at 305 Market or High 
Street in 1794; and at 307 Market in 1795, when, on July 1st, Governor Mifflin 
appointed him Auditor-General. He lived there until 1799, when the fam- 
ily removed, with the state capital, early in November, to Lancaster. While 
there, on October 13, 1801, he was transferred by Gov. Thomas McKean to 
the office of Comptroller-General in which he served until October 15, 1805. 



CONSTITUTION AND DEFENDER PASS 355 

session of the High Court of Errors and Appeals for a year 
past, on account of the new fundamental reorganization of 
the state, so that just a year ago the 25th of January, the 
present month, he had sat for the last time in that highest of 
state tribunals, with Governor Mifflin, Chief Justice Mc- 
Kean, and Justices Atlee and Shippen, Justice Rush being 
absent; and this court was not to meet again, on account of 
state reorganization, when, as every member of the Bryan 
following wovild say, mirabile dictii! Benjamin Chew be- 
came its head, one of the Proprietary leaders whom they had 
confined! Surely this was a new era! But, when the Su- 
preme Court session, above mentioned, closed on January 22, 
1791, in the arched room at the State House, they were at 
once, on the 24th, called to the same room in a short crimi- 
nal court session, with Chief Justice McKean, and Justices 
Atlee, Rush and himself, the last service Justice Bryan ever 
rendered as a jurist, after a decade of great usefulness to 
the state. 

For, three days later, at his home at 223 Arch Street, 
near Third Street, on Thursday, January 27, 1791, the 
valiant lover of democracy and the old constitution 
passed away, after a short illness. Three days later, on 
the afternoon of Sunday, the 30th, at the old First Presby- 
terian Church, in the Buttonwood grove, on the corner of 
White Horse Alley, later Bank Street, and Market Street — 
a building almost as old as the late constitution — his funeral 
services were held, attended by representatives of state and 
national governments, at which the Rev. Dr. John Ewing, 
Provost of the University, and his long-time pastor and 



He returned to Philadelphia and April 12, 1809, became Register of Wills, in 
which office he served until his death, in Chester County, on October 6, 1821. 
His brother, George Bryan, Jr., who had been clerk of the Senate, was 
appointed Auditor-General by Governor Snyder at Lancaster on May 2, 1809, 
and continued to serve after the removal o(f the capital to Harrisburgh in 
October, 1812, serving also under Governor Findlay, and finally under Gov- 
ernor Hiester, up to April 2, 1821, when he resigned, in the middle of that 
adniinistration. George, Jr., had lived at 307 Market so late as 1798, and 
at 71 Spruce Street in 1799, going with the family to Lancaster late in 
that year. The Bryans, according to Judge Chas. I. Landis oif Lancaster, 
lived for a time at what is now abo'Ut 18 or 20 W. King Street, and later at 
what is now 131 N. Duke Street; but whether either were Vice-President 
Bryan's home during the revolution is not known. George, Jr., was a le;iding 
Democratic candidate for Governor but was defeated. He died at Lan- 
caster, December 17, 1838. His wife was Anna Maria Steinmann. He has 
left distingushed descendants in the north and west. 



356 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

friend, preached the funeral sermon, in which occurred the 
following: 

"Our society [the Presbyterian Church]," said he, "this 
day mourns for the irreparable loss of one of her most re- 
spectable ornaments, snatched away by a hasty, and, to 
human appearance, an untimely summons. But God is holy 
in all His ways. His thoughts are far above our thoughts, 
and His ways above our ways.' 

"It would argue a criminal inattention to the dispen- 
sations of divine providence, to be insensible of the loss that 
we sustain by the removal of the Honorable George Bryan, 
who was an honor to the Christian society of which he was 
a member, an ornament to the profession of Christianity 
which he made, the delight and boast of his private convix- 
ions, and a public blessing to the state of Pennsylvania. 

"Formed by nature for a close application to study, ani- 
mated with an ardent thirst for knowledge, and blessed with 
a memory surprisingly tenacious, and, the uncommon at- 
tendant, a clear, penetrating, and decisive judgment, his 
mind was the store-house of extensive information on a 
great variety of subjects. Thus endowned and qualified, he 
was able, on most occasions, to avail himself of the labors 
and acquisitions, the researches and decisions of the most 
distinguished luminaries that had finished their course, and 
set before him. You could, therefore, with confidence, gen- 
erally depend on his judgment, as the last result of laborious 
investigation and mature decision. 

"And if you add to these natural and acquired endow- 
ments, the moral virtues and dispositions of his heart, his 
benevolence and sympathy with the distressed, his unaffected 
humility and easiness of access upon all occasions, his readi- 
ness to forgive, and his godlike superiority to the injuries of 
a misjudging world (in imitation of his divine master, who, 
when He was reviled, reviled not again), his inflexible in- 
tegrity in the administration of justice, together with his 
exalted contempt of both the frowns and the blandishments 
of the world ; you will find him eminently qualified for the 
faithful and honorable discharge of the various public 
offices which he filled with dignity and reputation, even in 



CONSTITUTION AND DEFENDER PASS 357 

the worst of times, and in the midst of a torrent of un- 
merited obloquy and opposition. 

"Such an assemblage of unusual qualifications and 
virtues, as adorned the character of our departed friend, 
but seldom unite in a single man. So that in the fall of this 
distinguished character, his relatives and friends, his private 
connections and acquaintances, and the public in general, 
mourn under an accumulated loss. 

"While the widowed partner of his voyage through the 
stormy ocean of life mourns for the loss of a tender hus- 
band, and the deserted pledges of their conjugal affection 
will have cause to remember, with gratitude, the watchful 
care of a tender parent; religion has lost an amiable ex- 
ample, science a steady friend, and public justice an im- 
partial and incorruptible judge. 

"Such he was, such he lived, and such he died; and 
is now gone to that bountiful master whom he served, to 
receive, we trust, the reward of his fidelity in the land of 
peace and joy, where 'the weary are at rest, and the wicked 
cease from troubling.' 

"Let us, then, imitate his virtues, and prepare for our 
summons to the invisible world ; remembering that 'our 
Lord comes at such an hour as you think not; and that His 
reward will be with Him, to give everyone according to the 
deeds done in the body.' "^ 

^ Carey's American Museum, Vol. IX, p. 82. A fine tribute from his 
fellow Justices, Chief Justice McKean, and Justices Atlee and Rush, the 
next day after the funeral, January 31st, in an appeal to the Speaker of 
The Assembly for a pension to Mrs. Bryan. "The unfortunate situation, 
to which the family of the late Mr. Justice Bryan is reduced by his death, 
is known to the other Judges. Affection for our depvarted brother, a recol- 
lection of the many important stations in government that he filled with 
reputation, both before and since the revolution, and a respect for the eminent 
services by him rendered to Pennsylvania called upon us to inform the 
Honorable House of Representatives, that he has died very poor, leaving an 

aged widow and seven children. The last twenty-five years of his life 

have been spent chiefly in the public service, but the small compensation 
allowed him did not afford the means of laying up anything for a future day, 
notwithstanding the mast rigid economy used. Those who merit well of 
the public should meet with public countenance and support. The widows 
and descendants of military gentlemen are deemed worthy of an allowance, 
on account of the past services of the deceased, to the amount of half 
their pay; and we humbly conceive many instances may accur in civil life, 

where the like bounty would be as meritoriously bestowed. — ■ To the 

humanity and generosity of the Honorable House we beg leave to submit the 
cause of this deeply distressed family, flattering ourselves they will give another 
instance of the liberality of Pennsylvania to her faithful servants." The 
committee report on it, on March 1st, while most sympathetic, did not see 
a way clear to set such a precedent, but referred it, indirectly, to the 
executive, to whom, it would seem, under the new order, the distinguished 
Justices should have sent it in the first place. 



358 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

His remains were interred in the old Presbyterian ceme- 
tery on Arch Street, at Fifth, just two squares from his 
home and one from the institution, which so long before 
and after this event bore the name he gave it, the* Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania. And on his tomb was inscribed 
the following legend : "In memory of George Bryan, who 
died 27"' January, 1791, aged 60 years. Mr. Bryan was 
among the earliest and most active and informed friends of 
the rights of man before the Revolutionary War. As a 
member of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and of the Con- 
gress at New York, in 1765, and as a citizen, he was con- 
spicuous in opposition to the stamp act and other acts of 
British tyranny. He was equally an opponent of Domestic 
Slavery. The emancipation of the people of colour en- 
gaged the feelings of his heart and the energies of his mind, 
and the Act of Abolition, [which] laid the foundation of 
their liberation, issued from his pen. He filled several im- 
portant offices during the Revolutionary contest, and for 
the last eleven years of his life he was one of the Judges of 
the Supreme Court. In his private deportment he was 
exemplary, — a Christian in principle and practice."^ 

On the following Wednesday, February 2, 1791, the 
Pennsylvania Gazette, a conservative paper, holding the 
place in Philadelphia now held by the Ledger, said : "Died : 
On the 27'^ ult., after a short illness, in the 60th year of his 
age, the Hon. George Bryan, Esq., one of the Judges of the 
Ni Supreme Court of this commonwealth. He was a native of 
Dublin, in the Kingdom of Ireland, and the eldest son of an 
ancient and very respectable family of that place. In early 
life he became a citizen of this country, and has resided for 
nearly forty years in the city of Philadelphia. He arrived 
in America with the best prospects, and entered an active 
and extensive field of commercial business. But the mis- 
fortunes of persons abroad unexpectedly inducing him to 
withdraw from that profession, he retired, with only a suf- 
ficiency to pay his debts. From this period, he became more 



^ At the vacation of the cemetery on December 5, 1867, the tomb was 
removed to Lot 13, Section C, Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia. Mrs. 
Bryan died on January 5, 1799, and was buried with him. 




The Tomb of Justice Bryan and His Wife 

in Laurel Hill, Philadelphia 

to which they were removed from the old Arch Street 

Presbyterian burial ground 



CONSTITUTION AND DEFENDER PASS 359 

than ever devoted to an honest and honorable simplicity, 
worthy of the best and purest days of the old republics. In- 
attention to private pursuits, his activity and intelligence 
were now almost wholly directed to the public weal. Previ- 
ously to the Revolution, he was a Representative in the 
General Assembly of Pennsylvania, and a delegate in the 
Congress which met at the city of New York, in 1765, for 
the purpose of petitioning and remonstrating against the 
stamp act and other arbitrary measures of the British 
Parliament. In the late contest, he took an early and active 
part with his country. When, by the declaration of inde- 
pendence, it became necessary to erect governments upon 
the authority of the people, he was appointed Vice-President 
of the Supreme Executive Council of this commonwealth, 
and, by the unfortunate death of the late President Wharton, 
in May, 1778, he was placed at the head of the government in 
Pennsylvania, during the summer and autumn of that turbu- 
lent and eventful year. His office having expired by the 
limitations of the constitution, in the autumn of 1779, he 
was elected a member of the Legislature. In this station, 
amidst the pressing hurry of business, the rage and clamor 
of party, and the tumult of war and invasion, in despite of 
innumerable prejudices, he planned and executed the 'act 
for the gradual abolition of slavery' ; a monument, which, in- 
stead of mouldering like the proud structures of brass and 
marble, bids fair to flourish in increasing strength.^ He was 
afterwards appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court, in 
which office he continued till his death ; and, during the ex- 
ercise of it, he was, in 1784, elected one of the Council of 
Censors, under the late constitution ; of which body he was 
(to say the least) one of the principal and leading characters. 
The strictures upon the proceedings of the government of 
Pennsylvania and its different departments, for the seven 
years last past, which it was the business and duty of that 
council to make, will be found to contain those principles of 
liberty and order, which will ever demand reverence and 
attention. Besides the offices which have been enumerated, 

' The discussions of the new constitution, as to the year 1808 and slavery, 
gave great hopes of its full abolition, nationally, at this t£ni& 



360 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

he filled a variety of public, literary and charitable employ- 
ments, in some of which he was highly active and useful. 
In his person, he had, for many years, exhibited visible 
marks of weakness and decay; but his mind ever remained 
unruffled and unbroken. The firmness of his resolution 
was invincible, and the mildness of his temper never 
changed. His knowledge was very extensive; the strength 
of his memory verified what has been thought incredible or 
fabulous, when related of others. His judgment was cor- 
rect, his modesty extreme, his benevolence unbounded, and 
his piety unaffected and exemplary. His family will ever 
remember the kind husband, the affectionate and indulgent 
father; his friends, the entertaining, assiduous and instruc- 
tive friend. If he failed in any duty, it was that he was 
possibly too disinterested : — his own interest was almost the 
only thing he ever forgot."^ 

This was the man, of whom, more than a dozen years 
later, in a celebrated case of impeachment of Justice Bryan's 
successors on the Supreme bench, Alexander J. Dallas, in 
his eloquent defense of that bench before the Senate of 
Pennsylvania, said, in citing an early unanimous action of 
the court in the first Oswald case, "in that unanimity," said 
he, "will be found the name of a gentleman [Justice George 
Bryan], whose memory will last as long as liberty has an 
advocate !"^ 

This distinguished Pennsylvanian and man was many- 
sided and of large mould, and will be remembered for other 



^ This also appeared in other papers. Oswald's Gasetteer, January 29, 
1791, said: "In him the public have to regret the loss of one of the 
most upright, sensible, and experienced Judges on the bench; the friends to 
liberty, an able and sincere advocate; his disconsolate widow, an affectionate 
and kind husband; and his children, a tender and indulgent parent." The 
absence of any better description of Judge Bryan — for none has been dis- 
covered — than the very inferior old portrait on wood and the cartoon, is 
piartly accounted for by the remark of Judge George S. Bryan, U. S. 
District Judge at Charleston, S. C, to Chief Justice James T. Mitchell, that 
Justice Bryan had in later life erysipelas or some kindred skin trouble on 
one side of his face, which kept him from sitting for a portrait. It will be 
seen that both the portrait on wood which was no doubt made from memory 
as the cartoon was, and the cartoon are of the left side of the face. Judge 
George S. Bryan, the grandson, said Judge Hopkinson and Justice Bryan 
were warm personal friends, notwithstanding their political differences. 

^Hamilton's Law Trials— 2, 1805, pp. 258-9. The day before Justice 
Bryan's funeral, his colleague on the High Court of Errors and Appeals, 
President Judge (of the Philadelphia court) Edward Shippen, was aiipointed 
his successor on January 29, 1791. There were four Justices for the ne.xt 
eighteen years, or until the death of Justice Thomas Smith on March 31, 1809, 
when they returned to the previous number. 



CONSTITUTION AND DEFENDER PASS 361 

things as well as liberty. As a man of learning he was a 
leader and official in the American Philosophical Society; 
and when the revolution made it necessary he created the 
University of Pennsylvania out of the old College of Phila- 
delphia and has left the stamp of the commonwealth upon it 
ever since. This alone should place his portrait upon the 
walls of that institution and his statue upon her campus. 
She is the University of Pennsylvania because George Bryan 
made her so, and nourished the institution in her financial 
and legal relations for a decade. 

Few men have done so much for the people of Pennsyl- 
vania. He it was more than any other man, who defended 
and preserved the great work of David Lloyd and his con- 
stitution of 1701, under which the colony flourished in 
almost republican freedom for seventy-five years ; and he did 
so even more by securing its extension into the days of the 
republic by merely replacing the authority of crown and 
proprietary by that of the people, with but few other modi- 
fications, and then defended and preserved it in its new form 
for over fourten years more; defended it with such power 
and skill that it required the adoption of the national consti- 
tution and creation of a new national government to displace 
the revered old vehicle of Pennsylvania's liberties for within 
a decade of a century. Such a contest gathers even greater 
significance, as to his power, when, in defense of the first 
form, he resisted a Franklin successfully ; and as a defender 
of the second form only finally yielded to the brilliant power 
of that father of the Constitution of the United States and 
of the later one of the state, James Wilson, but only after 
a contest of more than a dozen years. In all this he stood 
for that political science, now represented in the British 
government, and believed by many, in its flexibility to the 
public will, to be the ideal government — a political science 
that still contests the field with that represented by the gov- 
ernment of the United States and the oldest constitution in 
the world. 

In the government of the American people, George 
Bryan was, on the one hand, among the earliest patriots 
to spring forward in the defense of their liberties in the 



362 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

famous Stamp Act Congress and enroll his name upon their 
famous protests as well as upon the non-importation agree- 
ments which supported them ; — or, on the other hand, was 
among the most vigilant and prominent of those at the last, 
who insisted on the first ten amendments to the great consti- 
tution which created a nation nearly a quarter of a century- 
later. 

As a constructor or reconstructor of a state, the realizer 
in governmental form of the principles of liberty he advo- 
cated and put in or kept in state constitutions he was not 
less powerful. No man, so much as he, determined the 
form of the first state constitution under the revolution. 
Because of this he became so dominant a figure in the plural 
executive that for three years he was practically chief execu- 
tive, even when he had the title of vice-chief executive. His 
term ended in the executive department, where he had set 
precedents during the most stormy period of the revolution, 
he was at once made the chief legislator in reorganization of 
the new state to a degree never before known, probably, in 
republican annals. His term there ended, he was called to 
be a jurist on the highest tribunals of the state, he had al- 
most individually reorganized, there to interpret and apply 
the constitution and laws he had been so instrumental in 
•creating. Such an experience has been vouchsafed to but 
few men in all history. His portraits witness to these 
things on the walls of the Governor's room at Harrisburg, 
on those of the Supreme Court room at Philadelphia, and 
only in the legislative halls are they still unrecognized. The 
very bounds of Western Pennsylvania were determined by 
him more than any other man. If any statue is to grace the 
sjtate capitol grounds, that of George Bryan should be one. 
j/h% far as the state of Pennsylvania is concerned, George 
Bryan must ever be one of the noble group which includes 
a William Penn, a David Lloyd, a James Wilson, a Franklin 
and a Dickinson. 

His greatest claim to immortality, however, is as the first 
and truest emancipator of a race of slaves from the com- 
monwealth of Pennsylvania. No man would belittle or 
reduce one iota from the fame of the great man who freed 





George Bryan and Abraham Lincoln 
The one began and the other completed the Emancipation of the Negro Slaves 

in America 

Original of Bryan in possession of George B. Logan, Pittsburgh 

The Lincoln, from a Reynolds mezzotint 



CONSTITUTION AND DEFENDER PASS 363 

the slaves of the United States over eighty years later, in 
1863 ; nor does it reduce the dimensions of that great act to 
recall that Abraham Lincoln himself said he was not there 
as President and commander-in-chief to free the slaves ; 
if he could save the union and save the institution of 
slavery, he would do that; if he could save the union and 
free the slaves, he would do that ; and it is well known that 
he finally freed the slaves only as a war measure. It was 
men like William Lloyd Garrison who sought, in season and 
out of season, to remove the stain of slavery from the rest 
of America as George Bryan had removed it from Pennsyl- 
vania. George Bryan was both a Garrison and a Lincoln 
to the slaves of the Keystone commonwealth. He not only 
advocated it in season and out of season, recommended it 
as an executive, but personally wrote the act himself, and, 
with a power unique in legislative annals, secured its pas- 
sage as leader of legislation, and finally interpreted and ap- 
plied it as a jurist, always giving the slave the benefit of the 
doubt. ^ Pennsylvania, led by her law-giver, George Bryan, 
set the standard for the rest of the world in the first law for 
emancipation of the negro. Is there any colored institution 
in America, or anywhere else, where the portrait of George 
Bryan does not hang beside that of Abraham Lincoln? Is 
it possible that the great state of Pennsylvania has no statue 
of her great emancipator anywhere within her bounds? Is 
it also possible that no statue of the first American emanci- 
pator of slaves adorns the avenues of our national capital, 
where a Lincoln is so proudly honored? George Bryan did 
not secure the freedom of the slaves of Pennsylvania as a 
mere war measure. Gratitude for freedom from a foreign 
yoke by the revolution gave birth to the abolition act of 1780. 
"Impressed with these ideas," he writes in the preamble to 
the act, "we conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that 
it is in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to 
others, which has been extended to us." He was proud that 
they could "this day add one more step to universal civiliza- 

1 In the case of Res Publica v. Negro Betsy, 1 Dallas 469, Justice Bryan 
conjcurred with Atlee and Rush in the liberal construction against Chief 
Justice McKean's more cautious interpretation, Bryan saying: "Upon a clause 
of so obscure a kind, I would not wish to press an argument against Hlierty. 



364 BRYAN AND PENNSYLVANIA'S CONSTITUTION 

tion by removing as much as possible the sorrows of those 
who have Hved in undeserved bondage" ; and it was a great 
moment, on that first day of March, when the shackles be- 
gan falling off of the slaves of Pennsylvania, in the words 
of George Bryan and of the commonwealth : 

"Be it enacted and it is hereby enacted by the Representa- 
tives of the Freemen of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 
in General Assembly met, and by the authority of the same. 
That all persons, as well negroes and mulattoes and 
others who shall be born within this state, frcjm and after 
the passing of this act, shall not be deemed and considered 
as servants for life or slaves ; and that all servitude for life 
or slavery of children in consequence of their mothers, in 
the case of all children born within this state from and after 
the passing of this act as aforesaid, shall be and hereby 
is utterly taken away, extinguished and forever abolished." 



INDEX 



Index 



Abolition Act, of Penna., 195, 
et seq.; Assemblymen voting 
for it, 197; 206; 213; 215; 
motive for, 363. 

"A Brief State"— of The Pro- 
vince of Pennsylvania, 32. 

Adams, John, 104; 115; book 
of, 311; 318; 336. 

Adams, Samuel, 157. 

Admiralty Court of Penna 
160; 161 ; and jury trial, 161 
207; jurisdiction, 208; 210 
215; 226-7; precedence in the 
High Court of Errors and 
Appeals, 255 ; 265 ; 277 ; 279 ; 

"Adrian," 242 ; 243-4-5-6-7 ; 
247-8-9. 

Affirmations, 124 (see Test 
Oaths). 

Aix-la-Chappelle, peace, 13. 

Albany Convention 1754, 28-9; 
Governor Hamilton on, 28 ; 
29; 30. 

Alison, Rev. Dr. Francis, 78 ; 
79; 81. 

Allen, Chief Justice and Mer- 
chant, 27 ; 31 ; 53 ; 57 ; 59 ; 77 ; 
295. 

Amendments, to National Con- 
stitution, proposed by the 
Harrisburg Conference, 331- 
2-3 ; compared with minority 
report of the Ratifying Con- 
vention, 334 ; submitted by 
Congress in 1789; 2,2,7] 2,A7 ; 
349. 

American Philosophical So- 
ciety, 81 ; 82; 83; 84; 215; of- 
ficers of, 260; and the Uni- 
versity, 345. 

American Political Science 
(see Political Science). 

American Society, 82 ; 83 ; 84. 

American Society for Promot- 
ing and Propagating Useful 
Knowledge, held at Philadel- 
phia (see American Society). 

Amherst, General, 2,7 ; 45 ; 47. 



Andrews, Robert, and the Vir- 
ginia-Penna. boundary, 175. 

Annapolis Convention, 281 ; 
298; 302. 

Annexation of West, to Que- 
bec, 99. 

Anti-Constitutionalists, Penna., 
of 1776-1787, 139; 172; 233 
(see Bryan, George), 300; 
301; 343. 

Anti-Federalists, 305; 307; 308; 
310; 311; 313; 316; 320; 321- 
2-3 ; 334. _ 

Anti- Proprietary Movement, 
13; 14; 15; 27; 30; 31; 2,2; 
2,3: 36; 2,7; 38; 40; 44; 45; 
46: 47; 48; 49; 50; 51; 52; 
53; 54; 58; 63; 67; 76; 77; 
79; 80; 82; 86; 92; 105. 

"Aristocratic Party" (see Re- 
publican Society, Wilson, 
James, et al), 300; 301; 303. 

"Aristocratists," 278. 

Arnold, Gen. Benedict, 160. 

Articles of Confederation (see 
Confederation, Articles of). 

Assembly Hall, second floor, 
east, 20S. 

Assembly, powers, as a House 
of Commons, 4; 7; 8; 13; 
28 ; and finance, 31 ; 32 ; i2,; 
victory of, 2,7; and Mr. Pitt, 
40 ; 44 ; 45 ; 52 ; 54 ; 85 ; 89 ; 
change in attitude, 105 ; 
anomalous position of, 106; 
and the west, 107; and county 
representatives, 107 : 108 ; 
109; 112; 113; 116; 118; 120; 
126; 127; 131; 133; 134; 139; 
140 ; 142 ; 149 ; 162 ; and slav- 
ery, 164; 168; 169; 171; 172; 
173; 179; 184; Bryan leader- 
ship in, 187; 189; ct scq.; 
207; 208; 215; 217; 237; 238- 
9-40; 251 ; 258; 263; breaking 
quorum of, 267; 273; contest 
in, 274-5; 306; 307; 342; 346- 
7. 



367 



368 



INDEX 



Associators, 13; 116; 126. 

Atlee, Judge Wm. Augustus, 
142; sketch of, 225-6; 233; 
234; 238; 240; 256. 

Attainder, Act of, 152. 

Authority, change of, in Penn- 
sylvania, 116; 119. 



Bache, Richard, 141 ; 172. 
"Bachelor of Medicine" degree, 

University of Penna., 346. 
Bailey, Editor, 250; 261. 
Baltimore city, 1779, letter of 

Mr. Bryan on, 176. 
Baltimore, Lord, 11. 
Bank of North America, 233 ; 

257-8; 264; 268; 270; attack 

on, 271 (see National Bank). 
Bank of Pennsylvania, 233. 
Bank of Pennsylvania, second, 

proposed, 264; 271. 
Bayard, Col. John, 131; 137; 

138; 162. 
Berks County, 259, 
Bernard, Gov. of N. J., 35. 
Berkeley, Bishop, 18. 
Bird, Col. Mark, 184. 
Board of Trade, English, 4; 7; 

union proposal of, 29; policy 

of. 80; 118. 
Bond, Dr. Thomas, 82 ; 260. 
Boundary, western, of Penna., 

143; 175-6-7-8-9; 183-4. 
Bradford, Wm., laviryer, 234; 

241. 
British custom, 64; Commis- 
sion Court in Rhode Island, 

97-8; policy, 113-4; 123-4; 

offer, through General Howe, 

150; finance, 324. 
Bryan, Arthur and Samuel II, 

of Dublin, 18; 350. 
Bryan, Arthur, of Philadelphia, 

26 ; 147 ; 232 ; letter of, 278-9. 
Bryan, Elizabeth and Nancy, of 

Dublin, 18. 
Bryan, Mrs. Elizabeth Dennis 

(Mrs. George Bryan), 2; 18; 

letter to, 293. 
Bryan, Elizabeth, Jr., 147; 232. 
Bryan Family Bible record, 26. 
Bryan, Francis, of Philadelphia. 

26 ; 147 ; 232. 
Bryan, George, 1; 2; 8; 9; 17; 

education, 18; merchant in 

Philadelphia, 19; advice of 

father, 20-21; 22; diary of, 



22 ; dissolves partnership, 
23 ; signs paper money, 24 ; 
asks release of Samuel Wal- 
lis from debtor's prison, 24; 
marriage, 24-25-26; children, 
26; character of, 26-27; 
church membership, 21; 34; 
36; Zl ; 40; first public office 
of, 40-41; 42; 44; 46-7-S- 
9; 50-1; candidate for As- 
sembly, 54; 55; displaces 
Franklin in Assembly, 56 ; 
57; 58; 59; a judge, 59; 
60; 61-2; 63; 66; in Stamp 
Act Congress, 67; 70; report 
of, 71-2; 72; stamps and 
non-importation, IZ ; 74 ; 75 : 
76; 11; 78; 79; 81; 82; 83; 
84 ; 85 ; failure of, as 
merchant, 87-8; character 
of, 88-9; 92; and David 
Lloyd compared, 93 ; as 
Judge, 93; 94; leader 
of the country, vs. city, 95 
98; 100; 102; 104; 106; 108 
Port or Naval Officer, 109 
110; 112; 113; 115; 116 
117; 119; 120; 121; 122-3 
124; 125; 127; 128; 129 
130; 133; 134; 135-6-7 
138; 139; 140; 141; 142 
143; 144; 145; 146; 147 
148; 149; reply to Howe's 
ofifer, 150; 151; 152; 153 
President of Penna., 153 
154; return with capital to 
Philadelphia, 155; 156; 157; 
158; 159; 160; 161; 162; 163; 
and slavery, 164-5 ; as Vice- 
President again, 166 ; 167 ; 
appeal on slavery, 168-9; 170; 
and the Virginia-Penna. 
boundary, 175-6; letter of, on 
Baltimore, 176-7; 178-9; 180; 
181; 182-3; 184; 185; last ser- 
vices as Vice-President, 186; 
resignation, 186-7 ; election 
to Assembly, 187 ; work as 
organizer, 187-188; leader of 
Assembly, 189 ; letter of, on 
slavery, 190-91-2-3-4; his Ab- 
olition Act, 195, et seq.; his 
many chairmanships, 198 ct 
seq.; as reorganizer and 
Treasurer of the University 
of Pennsylvania, 200-201-202- 
203; 204; 205; 207; 208; 209; 
and the sloop Active case, 



INDEX 



369 



209-10-11-12; 213; 214; sal- 
ary, 214; 215; 216; 217; total 
chairmanships, 217; extra 
salary to, 217; prestige of, 
218; as jurist, 219; 220; 221; 
as a Supreme Court Justice, 
221-2; titles of Justice and 
Judge, 222 ; "Fourth Justice," 
226; 227-8; letter of, to Judge 
Atlee, 229-30-31; home of, 
232 ; 233 ; letters of, to Judge 
Atlee, 234-5-6-7-8-9-40; and 
The Freeman's Journal, 241 ; 
as "Adrian," 242-3-4-5-6-7; 
as "A New Pope," satire on 
by Hopkinson, 248-9; 250; 
red and black robes of, 250; 
and The Council of Censors, 
251; et seq.; 253; 254; 255; 
256; Treasurer and Trustee 
of the University, 256; 
chairman of University 
finance committee, 257 ; 
258; 259; a councillor of 
the American Philosophical 
Society, 260; member of 
Council of Censors, 260; 261 ; 
262 ; reasons cited, 262 ; 263 ; 
called "midwife" by Oswald, 
263 ; 264 ; and the "third" and 
"fourth" justiceships, 265; 
and the University, 266-7 ; 
public attacks on, 268; de- 
fenders of, 268-9 ; cartoon 
and satire on. 269-70; letters 
of, 271-2-3; 273; 279-80; 281; 
letters to, 282-3-4-5-6-7 ; pam- 
phlet by, in French, 284 ; 
letter, opinion of, 288-9-90- 
91-2-3 ; letter to wife, 293-4 ; 
and the University, 294; on 
Dr. Rush, 294-5, foot-note ; on 
Dickinson College, 295, foot- 
note; first published opinions 
of, 296-7 ; and the Long- 
champs case, 296; and the 
Dalby case, under the Aboli- 
tion Act, 296-7; as "Justice 
Him," 298 ; and a new 
national constitution, 299, et 
seq.; leaders of, 299; and 
State Capital, 299 ; commis- 
sioned again, 299 ; impres- 
sions of constitutional con- 
vention period by, 301-2; 303; 
on the national constitution, 
303-4-5-6-7 ; charged with 
authorship of the "Sixteen 



Seceders" paper, 308; and the 
"Centinel" papers, 309 ; 315 ; 
316; lampooned by Judge 
Hopkinson, 316-7; "servants" 
of, 317; intercepted letters of, 
published, 320-21-22-23; letter 
of, 324; and the celebration 
of the new national consti- 
tution at Philadelphia, 326; 
327 ; and amendments to the 
national constitution, Z27 ; 
and the Harrisburg Confer- 
ence, 327-8 ; and the Con- 
ference Manifesto, 328-9; 
acceptance of the national 
constitution, 328-9 ; amend- 
ments proposed, 331-2-3-4; 
335-6; attitude of to amend- 
ments, 338 ; only known of- 
ficial opinion of, 338-9-40 ; 
and the Oswald case, 339-40- 
41-42; and the Univer- 
sity, 342 ; 344 ; ceases to 
be Treasurer, 344; on com- 
mittee on new buildings, 
345 ; and the University 
greeting to Washington, 346; 
and the Centinel libel case, 
350; illness of, 350; foot- 
note; sister of, 350; family 
home in Dublin, Ireland, 
350; tribute to, by Cen- 
tinel, 351-2; cessation of 
abuse of, 352 ; and the Uni- 
versity, 354; last service 
on the Supreme Bench, 
354-5 ; illness and death, 
355 ; funeral of, 355-6 ; 
eulogy of. by Dr. John 
Ewing, 356-7; tributes of his 
fellow Justices, and plea for 
his family, 357, foot-note ; 
burial and notable tomb in- 
scription, 358; tribute in The 
Pennsylvania Gazette, and 
sketch "of, 358-9-60; tribute of 
Oswald's Gazetteer, 360; trib- 
ute of Alexander J. Dallas, 
360: estimate of, 361-2-3-4; 
an officer in Ameican Philo- 
sophical Society, 361 ; creator 
of the University, as such, 
361 ; defender and preserver 
of the work of David Lloyd, 
361 ; successful in defense 
against Franklin, but not 
agair'^t James Wilson, 361; 
his ideal similar to present 



370 



INDEX 



function of House of 
Commons, 361 ; in Stamp Act 
Congress, 362 ; stood for 
>nrst ten amendments to 

/National Constitution, 362; 
reconstructor of a state, 
chief executive of a state, 
chief legislator, in high- 
est courts, 362 ; ranks 
with Penn, Lloyd, Wilson, 
Franklin and Dickinson, 
362; chief honor as first 
emancipator of slaves, 362; 
and Lincoln, 363 ; and Gar- 
rison, 363 ; portraits and 
statues of, suggested, 363 ; 
interpretation of Emancipa- 
tion Act, as a jurist, 363 ; 
language of, in the Abolition 
Act of 1780, 364. 

Bryan, Mrs. George, I (see 
Brj'an, Mrs. Elizabeth Den- 
nis), 350, foot-note; death 
and burial of, 358. 

Bryan, George, Jr., 79; 147; 
232; 350, foot-note; sketch 
of, foot-note, 355. 

Bryan, Jonathan, 147; 22>2. 

Bryan, Mary, 79; 147; 232. 

Bryan, Samuel, of Dublin, 1 ; 
18; 19; letter of, 20-21; 22. 

Brvan, Samuel, of Philadelphia, 
26; letter of, 133; 147; 232; 
clerk of Assembly, 232 ; and 
Philadelphia election, 259 ; 
secretary of Council of Cen- 
sors, 260; clerk of Assembly, 
263 ; again clerk of Assem- 
bly, 270; 274; letter of, 274- 
5-6-7; 281; 299; and the 
Centijicl papers, 309-10-1-2-3- 
4-5-6-7-8-9; 320; 334-5-6-7; 
347; authorship of Centinel, 
347; 348; 350-1-2-3; candi- 
date for clerk of Assembly, 
354; sketch of, foot-note, 
354-5. 

Bryan, Sarah, 26; 147; 232. 

Bryan, Thomas, 147 ; 232. 

Bryan, William, 147; 232. 

Bucks county, 259. 

Burke, Edmund, 89. 

Bum, Dr., on Justice of The 
Peace and Parish Officer, v340. 

Bute, Lord, 50. 

Cadwalader, General John, 180. 
"Cajsars of America," 349. 



Caldwell, Samuel, 260. 

Cannon, Prof. James, 117; 120; 
121: 124; 125; 127; 131; 203. 

Capital, national, at York, 
148. 

Capital, removal in 1777, from 
Philadelphia, 148; return to 
Philadelphia, 155; U. S., 288. 

Censors (see Council of Cen- 
sors). 

Centinel papers. No. I, 309; 
310-11-12; No. II, 312-13; 
No. Ill, 313; No. IV, 314; 
No. V, 315; No. VI, 315; 
No. VII, 315-6; No. VIII, 
316; No. IX, 316; No. X, 
317; No. XI, 318; No. XII, 
318; No. XIII, 318-9; No. 
XIV, 319; No. XV, 319; 
No. XVI, 319; No. XVII, 
319: No. XVIII, 319; No. 
XIX, 334; No. XX, 335; 
No. XXI, 336; No. XXII, 
337: No. XXIII, 337; No. 
XXIV, 337; 346; -'Revived," 
No. XXV, 347; No. XXVL 
347; No. XXVIII, 348; No. 
XXIX, 349; No. XXX, 349; 
No. XXXI, 349; No. XXXII, 
349; No. XXXIII, 350-51-2-3. 

Chairmanships of Assembly 
Committees, 198, ct seq. 

Charles I and Ireland, 18. 

Charles, Robert, 27; 34; 39; 
40. 

Charter of Pennsylvania, of 
1681, 64. 

Charters, primary and second- 
ary, 3 ; 7 ; 8 ; 53 ; and powers, 
specified and implied, 101. 

Checks and balances, 279-80. 

Chester county election case, 
162; 163. 

Chew, Benjamin, 143; 226; 
Chief Justice, 295. 

Chief Justice, 9. 

Christ Church and Second 
Presbyterian, Phila., 25. 

Church of England, 51: 111; 
183. 

Cincinnati, Society of, 304 
(see also Society of Cincin- 
natus). 

City House, or Hall, New 
York, 68. 

City Tavern, banquet to Ger- 
ard, 158; and Wilson riots, 
185. 



INDEX 



371 



Civil lists, in America (see 
Hillsborough, Earl of), in 
Pennsylvania, 214; in U. S., 
347. 

Clinton, Governor, 12. 

Coin, drainage of (see Paper 
Money). 

Colden, CJov. Cadwalader, 67- 
8. 

Coleman, Judge William, Zl . 

College of Philadelphia, 32 ; 
82; 162; 179-80; 181-2; 184; 
186; 200; 201 (see Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania), 207; 
restoration requested, 258 ; 
261; 262; 270; restoration, 
342; 344; 345; Professor 
James Wilson's lectures on 
Political Science and Law in, 
353; desire for union with 
University, 353-4. 

Colonial Agent, 10; 12; assist- 
ant, 27. 

Colonial constitution, 95-6; 
103; 104; 107. 

Colonial Oflfice (see Board of 
Trade). 

Colonial period, close of, 110. 

Colonial policy (see Board of 
Trade). 

Colonial Union (see Union of 
Colonies). 

Commerce (see Paper Money 
and Counties' Statistics), 
21; 28. 

Commissioners of Appeal, Con- 
gressional Supreme Court, 
160; 211; 212; 

Committees of Correspondence 
(see Correspondence, Com- 
mittees of). 

Committee of Safety, 109 (see 
Council of Safety), 130. 

Common Law and Equity, 127. 

Confederation, Articles of, 118; 
149; 151; 152; 233; 240; 251; 
252; 253; 257; 268; Wilson 
amendment to (see W^ilson 
Resolutions of 1783), 179-80; 
298; 302; 308; weakness of, 
314. 

Confiscation of Estates, 172 ; 
179. 

Congress, Continental, 107 ; 
108; 109; 110 (see Continen- 
tal Congress), 114; 116; 117; 
118; 120; 121; 122; 124; 
133; 147-8; 151; 152; cele- 



bration of Independence, 
156; 158; Supreme Court of, 
160; 161; 179; 213; 214: 219; 
finance of, 240; 251; and the 
power of the purse, 252 ; and 
mob, 253; 254; 258; 261: 271; 
273 ; and Wilson Res.jlutions, 
279-80; 281; letter on, 283-4- 
5: and North Carolina, 286; 
requisitions of, 287; 298; 
300; 301; 303; 315; and new 
constitution, 326; proposes 
ten amendments to new con- 
stitution, 337-8. 

Connecticut claims, 168; 204; 
206; 216. 

"Consent," vs. directive choice, 
101. 

"Consolidation," 347. 

Constitutional Convention, Na- 
tional, 253; 280; 281 (see 
Annapolis Convention and 
also Wilson Resolutions of 
1783). 298; George Bryan 
on, 300-1 ; rapid agreement 
for, 302; 303: 304; a second 
proposed, 312; 315; 320; 
327-8; 330; 342. 

"Constitutionalists" ( Penna.), 
168; 189; 233; 263 (see 
Bryan, George and Wilson, 
James, also National Bank), 
276; 278; 297; 301; 303; as 
Anti-Federalists, 305. 

"Constitutional Society," The, 
174; 180. 

"Constitutional Whigs" (see 
Constitutionalists, Penna.) . 

Constitution of 1696 (Penna), 
5. 

Constitution, first, of the U. S., 
117; second (see Confeder- 
ation, Articles of) ; third 
(see Constitution, National). 

Constitution of 1701 (Pen- 
na.), 1; 3; 5; 6; 7; 8; 
10; 11; 15; 17; 40; 52; 
53; 54; 64; 74; 11; 83; 
86; 92: 100; 101; 102; 108: 
109; 110; 111; 112; 113; 114; 
115; 117; 118: 119; 120; 122; 
125: 126; 128; 129; 137: 138; 
173; 217; 252; 279; 308: 343. 

Constitution (Penna.), 1776, 
120; 121; 124; 125; 126; 127; 
128; 129: 130: 131; 132; 
136; 137; 162-3; 171-2; 
173; 217; 218; 220; 233; 237; 



372 



INDEX 



240; 251; 252; 257; 258; 259; 
260; 261; 263; 269-70; 279- 
80; 308; 316; 326; 343; fall 
of, 344; 348; 349; 350; 351; 
352-3. 

Constitution of 1790 (Penna.), 
353. 

Constitution, National, 253 ; 
279-80; 303; chief supporters 
of, 304-5-6 ; ratification, in 
Pennsylvania, 306-7 ; oppo- 
sition to, 307; Ceiitinel on, 
310; 311; 312; 313; 314-15; 
318; 319; 320; 321-2; riots 
about, 322; attitude toward, 
in parts of Pennsylvania, 
322-3 ; Henry, Monroe, Jef- 
ferson and Randolph, on, 
324 ; established, 326 ; cele- 
bration of, in Philadelphia, 
326 ; amendments, varying 
cliaracter of, 327 ; amend- 
ments proposed by Harris- 
burg Conference, 330-1-2-3-4- 
5-6 ; and by Congress, 337 ; 
in effect, 342 ; and state con- 
stitution, 351 ; 353 ; oldest in 
the world, 361. 

Constitution and laws, 8. 

Constitutions and Charters, 101. 

"Continental Congress," name 
used, 68; 74; 104; 105; 106; 
(see Congress, Continental), 
107. 

"Convention," armed brig, 159 ; 
160; 211. 

Convention, constitutional 

(Pennsylvania), called, 343; 
"address" on, 347 ; origin of, 
348; 349; 353. 

Convention, National Constitu- 
tional (see Constitutional, 
Convention, National). 

Convention, Provincial Consti- 
tutional (Penna.), 108; 109; 
110; 113; 117; 118; 124; 125; 
126-7-8-9-30; 132; petition 
for new one, 141 ; 142-3 ; 145 ; 
new one, 159; 162-3; 170; 
171; 173. 

Convention, Ratifying (Pen- 
na.), 313; 318; 333: minority 
report and protest, compared 
with manifesto of Harris- 
burg Conference, 333-4; 337- 
8. 

"Cool Thoughts," bv Franklin, 
50; 51. 



Cornwallis, Lord, surrender of, 
234. 

Correspondence, Committee of, 
suggested, 97-8; 100. 

Council, Executive, and Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, 6; 8; 11; 
13; 119; 126; 127; 133; 
134; 137; 138; 139; 142: 
148; 149; 151; 152; 154: 
162; 167; 168; 169; 170; 
173; 179; 181; 185; 187; 
221 : 252. 

Council, Legislative, 4; de- 
stroyed, 5 ; 6 ; 259 ; and Judge 
Hopkinson, 298. 

Council of Censors, 128; 129; 
132; 138; 171; 173; 250; 252; 
255; 257; 258; 259; and cer- 
tain counties in, 259 ; 260 : 
262; 270; 312; 347; 348; 349. 

Council of Safety, 116: 130'; 
131; 133; 149; 151; 263. 

Council of State, 118. 

Counter-Revolution in Phila- 
delphia, 133. 

Counties, statistics, 16; 39; 91; 
equal voting, 116. 

Court House, Philadelphia, 61 : 
new, as capitol of U. S., 343. 

Court of Appeals, Congres- 
sional (see Commissioners of 
Appeals, Congressional). 

Courts, 38; of Philadelphia, 61 ; 
62: 79: of state, 81. 

Cowpland, Judge Caleb, 27. 

Criminal Court (see Oyer and 
Terminer Court). 

Crown Counsel, 4 ; 6 ; 7. 

Crown government, desired 
(see Anti-Proprietary move- 
ment), 118. 

Cumberland countv, action of, 
109. 

Currency (Penna.), through 
individual notes, 80; depre- 
ciation of, 180 ; 216 ; wheat 
basis of, 256; national, 349. 



Dalbv case, Philip, of Alexan- 
dria, 296-7. 

Dallas, Alexander James, 295. 

"Dangerous Persons," list of, 
144. 

Declaration of Independence 
(see Independence). 

Declaration of Rights, in Pen- 
na., 119; 127. 



INDEX 



Z7Z 



Delaware, defective title of 
Penn to, 5 ; defective union 
with Pennsylvania, 5; 11; 
constitution of, 225. 

DeMably, Abbe, 117. 

"Demophilus," letter of, 140. 

Dennis, , of Philadelphia, 

18. 

Dennis, Elizabeth (see Bryan, 
Mrs. Elizabeth Dennis), 2. 

Denny (Col. and) Governor 
William, 2,Z; 34; 35; 2>7 ; 38. 

d'Estaing, Count, fleet of, 156. 

Diary of George Bryan, ex- 
tracts, 22; described, 23: Z7 ; 
47-8-9; 50; 51. 

Dickinson College, George 
Bryan on, 295. 

Dickinson, John, 42; 43; 44 
46; 51; 52; 53: 54; 58; 59 
66; 67; 68; 69; 70; 71; 72> 
74; 76; 79; 80; 83; 85; 90 
92: 100: 102; 103; 104; 106 
108: 110; 112; 118: 119; 120 
130: 140: 249; 251; 254: 265 
274; 312. 

Direct Trade with other than 
Great Britain, 57. 

Divesting Act (see Penn Es- 
tates). 

Dublin, 17. 

Dunmore, Lord, 99. 

Episcopalians, clergy of, Z7. 

European economic conditions 
in 1788, 324. 

Evans, Governor (see Gov- 
ernor Evans). 

Evans, Governor, 6. 

Evans, Judge John, 143 ; sketch 
of, 226; 233; 234; 238; 240; 
256; on Council of Censors, 
258; death of, 265. 

Ewing, Rev. Dr. and Professor 
John, 78: 83; 88; 96; 143; 
175-6-7-8-9; and University 
of Pennsvlvania, 202; Pro- 
vost, 203; "260. 

Executive, single or plural, 259. 

Federal buildings, proposed, 

287. 
"Federal Empire," 346. 
Federalist papers, 309. 
"Federalists," 305; 306: 316; 

318; in Pennsvlvania, 319-20; 

321; 322; 323; 324-5; cele- 



bration of, in Philadelphia, 
326 ; 334 ; 335 ; 347. 

Financier-General, 251 (see 
Robert Morris). 

Findlay, William, 258; 278; 318. 

Finley and Finlay (see Find- 
lay). 

First City Troop, Philadelphia. 
185. 

First Presbyterian Church, 
Philadelphia, 25 ; 78. 

Fisheries and bounties, colon- 
ial, 301. 

Fitzsimons, Mr., on Council 
of Censors, 258. 

Five Nations, 10. 

Five per cent duty, 305 (see 
also Rhode Island). 

Flying Camp, 133. 

Forbes, General, 36. 

Forbes Road to Fort Pitt, and 
population, 92: and politics, 
95. 

Fort Pitt (Fort Dunmore), 99. 

"Fort Wilson" riot, 185. 

Fothergill, Dr., 58-9. 

Frame (see Constitution of 
1776). 

France, 12. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 11: 12; 13; 
14; history of Indian treaties, 
14; character of, 14-15; re- 
port on paper money, 16 ; 17 ; 
21 ; 25 ; 27 ; 28 : union plan of, 
29; 30; 34; 35; 2,7; 38: 39: 
40; 41; 43; 44; 48; 49: 50: 
51; 52; 55; 56: 58; 59; 61; 
63; 67; 75; 76; 77 \ 79: 80: 
81; 82; 84; 86; 90; 92; 99: 
100; 102; 104; 105; 106; 112: 
118; 124; 130: 135; 136; 172: 
173; 189; 260; President of 
Council, 274; effect of age of. 
275; 299; popularity of. 303: 
311; 345. 

Franklin party, 67. 

"Franklin" state, 286. 

Franklin, William, 14; 49. 

Freedom of the Press, 75. 

"Freeman," 64-5. 

Freeman's J oiirnal, The. 241 ; 
242: 249; 261. 

French intrigue, 10 ; 36. 

Frigate, Pennsylvania's 35 : 40. 

Galbreath, Col., 120. 
Galloway, Joseph, 24; 27; 34; 
43; 44; 52; 53; 55; 56; 67; 75; 



374 



INDEX 



79; 81; 85; 90; 91; 92; 100; 
102 ; 103 ; 104 ; 105 ; 106 ; con- 
fiscation of estate, 172. 

Garrison, William Uoyd, and 
Bryan, 363. 

Gaspee schooner incident, 97-8. 

"Gentlemen mobs," in Philadel- 
phia, 2)22). 

George III, King, 40. 

Gerard, M., French minister, 
156; reception to, 157-8. 

German settlers, 48; 105; pop- 
ulation, 111. 

Gold and exchange, 12. 

Gordon, Governor, 9 ; 10. 

Grand Jury, "Adrian" on, 242- 
3-4-5-6-7. 

Graydon, Alexander, quoted, 
136. 

Great Britain compared with 
Pennsylvania, 4 ; and Ameri- 
can Political Science, 104 ; 
offer of, 105-6. 

"Great Fear," The, 115. 

Growdon, Judge Lawrence, 27. 

Habeas Corpus suspending bill, 

216. 
Halifax, Lord, 45. 
Hamilton, Andrew, 9 ; Judge of 

Admiralty, 11; 12; 13; 27. 
Hamilton, James, Governor, 

13; 27; resigns, 28; and 

power of Parliament, 29; 38; 

39; 40; 42; 43; 44; 82; 108; 

143. 
Hancock, Gov. John, 239. 
Hanna's Town, 290. 
Harris, John, 213. 
Harrisburg Conference of 

1788, 327-8; manifesto of 

compared with Congressional 

amendments and dissentients 

of Ratifying Convention, 

337-8. 
Hartley, Lawyer, 233. 
High Court of Errors, creation 

of, 168; 205; 207; 214; 220; 

character of, 221; 223-4-5-6- 

7-8; 254; 265; lawyers in, 

266; 273. 
Hillsborough, Earl of, 80; 85; 

89; 90; 92; 99. 
Historical Review, An, 38; 39 
Holland, example of, in pre- 

revision of laws, 141 ; and 

American national bank 

shares, 281. 



Hopkinson, Judge Francis, 
sketch of, 226-7 ; satire of, 
247-8-9; 254; 255; and Uni- 
versity seal, 257 ; 265 ; 269 
cartoon by, 269-70 ;_ 277 
as "Uncommon Sense," 297 
and The New Roof, 316-7 
318; 319; and plan of cele- 
bration of new national con- 
stitution, in Philadelphia, 
326. 

House of Commons, 124. 

Howe, Lord, 35 ; General, 133 ; 
and Philadelphia, 143; 144; 
147; 153. 

Hutchinson, Dr. James, 185. 

Hutchinson, Gov. Thomas, of 
Boston, 96-7 ; 99. 



Immigration, from Ireland and 
Germany, 16. 

Imperii in imperio, 262 ; 298. 
Imperial Powers, 6; policies, 63. 

Independence, 13; 31; 32; 40; 
65; 101, 105; 107; 108; 109; 
unanimity on, 109; declar- 
ation of, 110; 111; 112; 116; 
117; and union, 117; 120; 121; 
and Penna., 154; 155; cele- 
bration of, 156; and slavery, 
168-9; complete, 124. 

Independent Gazetteer, 241 ; 
249; 263; 308-9. 

Indian trials, 288-9-90. 

"Indian Queen," as a Lower 
House, 297. 

Indiana Colony, 136. 

Indian Relations, 10; 12; pur- 
chases, maps of, 30; 35; 36; 
47; 51; 81; 91. 

Intellectual activity in Penn- 
sylvania, 81. 

Inter-State Economic Conven- 
tion, 206 ; 208 ; 209 ; 213 ; Con- 
stitutional Conference, 328. 

Ireland, manufacturers in, 18; 
excepted in Philadelphia boy- 
cott, 72) ; 79; prosperity of, 
324. 

Irish settlers, 48. 

Irish Parliament, 17; 18. 

Jackson, Richard, agent, 43; 

53; 57; 75; 76; 77; 79; 90. 
Johnson, Sir William, 47; 51. 
Judges of Philadelphia, 60-61 ; 

62; of state, 80; salaries 



INDEX 



37: 



of Justices, 235 (see salar- 
ies of Judges). 

Judiciary, law, of 1722, 8; 10; 
38; 46; 127; independence of, 
259. 

"Jurisperitus," 241; 242; 247. 

Junto, The, 81 ; 82. 

"Junto" (see Federalists, and 
also National Bank Group). 

Justices of the Peace, account 
of, 291-2; 339-40-41. 



Kaims, Lord, 318. 

Keith, Governor Sir William, 
13; 37. 

Kentucky, independence of, 
273. 

Kinsey, John, 9: 11; 12; 13. 

Knox, Senator. 327. 

Lancaster people, on Constitu- 
tion of 1701 : 54; capital, 145 ; 
148; 151; 155; county of, 
259 ; nominating conference, 
336. 



"L'etat, c'est iiwH", 207. 

Letters from a Farmer, 83: 
85. 

Levy, Lawyer, 254. 

Lewis, William, 184; 228; 233: 
234; 240; 254. 

Lexington and Concord, 105 ; 
as Ltisitanias, 106. 

Lieutenant-Governor, 4 ; 6 ; 7 : 
9; 10; 13; and support of. 
31; 32. 

Lincoln, Abraham, attitude on 
slavery, 363. 

Lloyd, David, 1; 2; 3; 4; 5 
6; 7; 8; 9; 17; 27; 33; 53 
and George Brvan compared 
93 ; 122-3 ; 130 ;" 188 ; 217. 

Lodge, Senator, 327. 

Logan, James, 9; 10; 13. 

Longchamps. Charles Julian de, 
case of, 296. 

Lords Justices' instructions, 27. 

Lower Counties (see Dela- 
ware). 

Luzerne, Chevalier de, 206. 



Land, rate. 17; 46; office. 207; 
speculators, 284 ; owners, not 
represented, 308. 

Laurens, President, of Con- 
gress, 157; 158. 

Laws, obstacles to passage of, 
33. 

Law Reports, account of, in 
Pennsylvania, 295-6-7. 

Laws and Constitution, 8. 

Law of Nature, 104. 

Lawyers, and Merchants (see 
]\Ierchants and Lawyers) ; in 
Supreme Court, 229 ; 254 ; 
255. 

League of Nations, 115. 

"Legal machines," 297. 

Legal practice, early and later, 
289-90. 

Legal Society, of young law- 
yers, 294; (Law Academy 
forerunner). 

Legal tender law, 337 . 

"Le Gerard," American priva- 
teer, 159; 160. 

Legislative Council (see Coun- 
cil, Legislative). 

Legislative obstacles, in Penn- 
sylvania, 4 ; reduction of, 4. 

Legislature of Pennsylvania, 
composition of, 5 ; 7. 



McKean, Chief Justice Thomas, 
124; 141: 143; 172; sketch of, 
224-5; 233; 234; 237; 238; 
240; 241; 250; 254; 256; 260: 
265 ; opinions of, 295 ; a.= 
"Chief Justice I," 298: 
burned in effigv, 322 ; 339-40- 
41-42; 351; 352; 354. 

Madison, James, 115; praised, 
347. 

Madison, Rev. and President 
(College), 175. 

Magna Charta of Pennsylvania, 
2; 7; 9. 

Mansfield. Lord, and American 
political science, 101 ; 104. 

Manufacturers, 17; 75. 

Marbois, M., 260; and Long- 
champs, 296. 

Markets, American, overloaded 
by British. 301. 

Martin, Luther, 318. 

Mason and Dixon Line, 178. 

Massachusetts, action of, 85 : 
89 : 96-7. 

Matlack, Col. Timothy, 120: 
131 ; 173. 

!\Iedical School, University of 
Penna., 346. 

Merchant marine, American, 
301 ; exclusion of, 302. 



376 



INDEX 



Merchants and Lawyers, posi- 
tion of, 22 ; list of in 1752, 
22; study of law, 26; greeting 
to Gov. John Penn, 44; list 
of, 44; and Non-Importation 
(see Non-Importation), 84; 
87 ; and high prices, 180. 

Mifflin, Thomas, 82; 140; 274; 
275 ; 277-8 ; 299. 

Miles,' Judge Samuel, 254 ; 257 ; 
258 ; resignation from Coun- 
cil of censors, 260. 

Military and Naval Movements, 
35 ; rendezvous, at State 
House, 143. 

Ministerial policy (see Hills- 
borough, Earl of). 

Minority Protest, 58. 

Mint, a, proposed by Congress, 
273. 

Mississippi river, and Ken- 
tucky, 273; 287. 

Mob, at State House, 253; at 
elections, 258. 

Moland, John, 42. 

Monarchy, in U. S., 300; 304. 

Montesquieu's Spirit of The 
Lazes, 115; 312; influence of, 
in France, 336. 

Moore Dr. (jharles, 83. 

Moore, Justice William, 34. 

Morgan, Dr. John, 81 ; 82 ; and 
Dr. Shippen, 212 ; 256. 

Morris, Governor (Chief Jus- 
tice) Robert Hunter, 30; 31; 

2 2 ■ 2Q 

Morris, Robert, 112; 168; 180; 

185; 272; -Centinel" on, 2,i7. 
Morton, John, 66; 68; 70; 71; 

72; 72>; 106. 
Muhlenberg, Fred. A., 258. 



National Bank, group, The, 
251 (see Bank of North 
America and Bank of Penn- 
sylvania), 257; state charter 
of, 257-8; 261; 262; 264; 270; 
271; 273; 274; 279-80; shares 
held, 280-1; 282; 283; 287; 
299; 303; 311; 313; 318; 324; 
325 ; 335 ; 336 ; a history of, 
by Ceiitiiicl, 350 et seq. 

National Constitutional Con- 
vention, 253. 

National government, a fight 
for, 303 (see Constitutional 
Convention, National), and 



State Government, in State 
House, Philadelphia, 346 ; 
353. 

National Taxing power, 253. 

Negroes, in Pennsylvania (see 
Abolition Act of 1780 and 
Bryan, George). 

New Hampshire, and the Na- 
tional Constitution, 320. 

New Jersey, towns of 1754, 
described, 23 ; and a national 
constitution, 280-1 ; paper 
money in, 302 ; and the na- 
tional constitutional conven- 
tion, 303. 

New London Academy, 81. 

New Orleans, great fire in, 
325. 

Newspapers, and The Stamp 
Act, 75 ; and the national con- 
stitution, 306 ; 307. 

Nisi Prills (see Courts, of 
State), 231; 232; 255. 

Non-Exportation, 104. 

Non-Importation agreements, 
73 ; 75 ; 84 ; 85 ; 87 ; 90 ; 104 ; 
105. 

Norris, Isaac, report on history 
of paper money, 11; 28; 34; 
58. 

Northampton county, 259. 

North Carolina, cession of wes- 
tern lands, 286-7 ; and the na- 
tional constitution, 307. 

North, Lord, proposals of, 154- 
5. 

Northumberland county elec- 
tion case, 276-7. 



Olmsted, Gideon, 159; 160; 

209-10. 
Opinions, judicial, 295-6-7. 
Oswald, Eleazar and Richard, 

241 ; 242 ; 249 ; 255 ; 258 ; 263 ; 

307; 308-9: 309; 310; 339-40- 

41-2; 350; 351. 
Otis, and the Sugar Act, 52. 
Oyer and Terminer Court, 255 ; 

justices of, 290-1. 



Pacifists and Tories, 207. 

Paine, Major Thomas, 117; 
189; honored, 203. 

Paper Money, 10 (see Trade 
balance), report on history 
of, 11; 12; report on, 16; 



INDEX 



in 



17; 24; 28; 31; ZZ; 2,7; and 
supply bill, 40; 42; 57; 76; 
79; 80; 90; 235; 236; 267: 
301; of Penna., 302; effect 
of, 305; in 1788, 325. 

Paris, Ferdinando J., colonial 
agent, 10. 

Parliament, composition of, 5 ; 
representation in, 18; author- 
ity of, 104 (see Colonial 
Constitution), 118. 

Patridge, Richard, 12; 27; 34; 
39. 

Party names, in 1788, 305. 

Paxton Remonstrance, 48. 

Peale, Charles Wilson, 117; 
141; 174; 185; 189; 204; 209; 
213. 

Pemberton, James, 67. 

Penn Estates, and taxes, 30; 
31 ; 32 ; 39 ; 59 ; confiscation 
of, 168; 172; 184; 198-9; 200; 
207. 

Penn Family, and Taxed Es- 
tates, 30; 31; 2>2\ 39; 45; 
47; 48; 49; 56; 59; 83; 91; 
105; 108; 114; 140; 200. 

Penn, John, 10; Governor, 25 
44; 45; 47; 59; 60; 77; 81 
82; 84; 85; 90; 91; 100; 105 
143; 172; 184. 

Penn, Richard, Jr., 91. 

Pennsylvania Hospital, 212. 

"Pennsylvania-ization," 32. 

Pennsylvania, a Vice-Royalty, 
2; charters of, primary and 
secondary, 3; compared with 
Great Britain, 4; legislative 
obstacles in, 4; legislature, 
composition of, 5 ; and Dela- 
ware, 5 ; 7 ; 10 ; growth of, 91- 
2 ; 95 ; and Virginia, 99 ; 106 ; 
110; 112; 117; 126; 131; 152; 
161 ; executive mansion of, 
172; 180; and slavery, 198; 
212. 

Pennsylvania- Virginia Boun- 
dary, 143 (see Boundary, 
Western, of Penna.). 

Penn, Thomas, 10; 12. 

Penn, Wm., 1;2;3;4;5;6;7; 
8; 11; and Assembly finance, 
31; ZZ; 45; 64. 

Petitions, use of, 183 ; 263. 

Philadelphia, British occupa- 
tion of, 144 ; 147 ; evacuation 
of, 155; ceases to be capital, 
254 ; and celebration of new 



national constitution, 326; 
offers new Court House as 
national capitol, 343 ; and 
Boston, 22 ; Assembymen of, 
1764, 54; elections in, 238; 
judges in, 60-1-2; 130; objec- 
tive of British, 109; 142. 

"Philadelphia," letter of, 141. 

Philadelphians, noted, homes 
of, 282. 

"Phocion." letter of, 139-40. 

Pitt, and the Assembly, 40 ; in 
power, 80. 

Plan, or Frame (see Constitu- 
tion of 1776). 

Political philosophy, in Amer- 
ica, and the common law, 
101 (see Political Science, 
in America). 

Political science, in America, 
101 ; and the revolution of 
1688, 101; 104; in Pennsyl- 
vania, 112; 113; 115; 122; 
123 ; 252 ; 253 ; 254 ; 264 ; 268 ; 
279-80; 281 ; 297 ; 311-2-3-4-5 ; 
338; 343; 353; contest of 
American and British ideas 
in, 361. 

Potter, Col., 120; General, 251; 
260. 

Potter, General, 249. 

Power of The Purse, 3; 6; 
7; 29; 84; 101; 252; 253; 
257; 264; and the Wilson 
Amendment to the Articles 
of Confederation, 279-80 ; 
281; 313; 334. 

Powers, Specified and Implied, 
in charters, 101. 

Preamble, to May 10 resolu- 
tions, 108; of Penna., 124. 

Presbyterians and politics, 36 ; 
37 ; 55 ; 59 ; 67 ; 92 ; 105 ; 107 ; 
111; 118; 183. 

Presbyterian "New Lights" (see 
Second Presbyterian Church, 
Phila.). 

President, of Executive Coun- 
cil, 11 (see Council Execu- 
tive). 

Price, Dr., 117. 

Privy Council, 4; 6; 7; 40; 
order of, 45. 

Profiteering, forestalling and 
regrating, 158; monopoly 
also, 216. 

"Projector" (see Hopkinson, 
Judge Francis). 



378 



INDEX 



Proprietary (see Penn Fam- 
ily). 

Proprietary, and finance (see 
Anti-Proprietary M o v e - 
ment). 

Proprietary Party, 257. 

Proprietor, not part of Legis- 
lature, 6. 

Protestant Episcopal Church 
(see Church of England). 

Province, change of, to State, 
116. 

Province House (see State 
House), 17. 

Provincial Conference, 100; 
102; 103; 105; second, 105; 
107; 108; 109; 110; 118. 

Provincial ship (see Frigate). 

Provisional Government, of 
Penna. (see Convention, 
Provincial Constitutional). 

Public Debt, National, 251; 
253 ; 283-4 ; 300. 

Public Credit, 273. 

Public Works, at Reedy Island, 
commissioners for, 40-41. 



Quaker, Revolution of, 3; 8; 
and politics. 92; (see Anti- 
Proprietary Movement), 107; 
111; 113; and the Revo- 
lution of 1776 ; 335 ; in poli- 
tics, 32; 35; 36; ^1 \ 46; 47; 
48; 49; 50; 51; 56; 57; 92; 
105; 118; 126; and slavery, 
164; 257; 351. 

Quotas, relative (Pa., Va., and 
Mass.), 151. 



Ralph, the author of, An His- 
torical Review, 38. 

Reed, Col. Joseph, 103; 106; 
142; 143; General, 156-7; 
159; 163; 164; as President, 
165; 168; 172; 183; 185; 186; 
214; salary, 215; 219; 221; 
sketch of, 223 ; lawyer, 237 : 
241; 249; 250: 258; 336. 

Remonstrance of 1704, Lloyd- 
ean, 38. 

Reports, Law (see Law Re- 
ports, in Pennsylvania). 

Representation, in constitu- 
tion of 1776; 126. 

Republican party (of 1785), 
(see Wilson, James), 274. 



"Republican Societv," The, 172- 
173; 174; 180. 

Responsibility, a corner-stone 
of Constitution of 1776 (Pen- 
na.), 311. 

Revolution, a new thing, 108; 
111; 112-3. 

Revolution of 1688, 1; 2; 3; 
5 ; 7 ; 8. 

Rhode Island, and the Gasper 
Commission Court, 97-8 ; and 
national finance, 283 ; and the 
five-per-cent, 300. 

Riots, in Carlisle, 322 ; 323. 

Rittenhouse, David, 117; 120: 
131; 133; State Treasurer, 
and on Virginia-Penna. boun- 
dary commssion, 175. 

Rodney, Caesar, account of 
Stamp Act Congress. 70-71. 

Roof, The Nczv (see The Nczv 
Roof). 

Ross, Col. George. 119: Judge 
of Admiralty, 160; 161. 

Roval provinces, 52. 

Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 115; 180; 
and brother, Jacob, 250 ; 265 ; 
on George Bryan, 295 ; foot- 
note : 318; 336. 

Rush, Justice Jacob, 265. 



Salaries, of Judges, 235 ; 236 ; 
237; 238. 

Sargent, John, of London, 40. 

Schools, of Political Science, 
253; 254; 264: of national- 
ism, 279-80; 281; 303. 

Scotch-Irish. 92. 

Secession, right of. 327. 

Second Presbyterian Church, 
founding of, 25 ; 37. 

Self-restraint, legislative, 5 ; 
113; 117: 118; 122; 128; 137; 
252; 311. 

Sergeant. Jonathan Dickinson. 
143: 184; Attorney-General. 
228 ; 233 : 234 ; 241 ; 250 ; 254 ; 
on the National Bank, 273. 

Ser\ants, 11. 

Shelburne, Lord, 80. 

Shippen, Dr. Edward, 82; 256. 

Single-chamber legislature, ad- 
vocates of, 113; 171 ; in either 
state or nation, 252-3 ; 259. 

"Sixteen Seceders." 308. 

Slavery, trade in Pennsylvania 
urged, prohibited in 1775; 



INDEX 



379 



105; and George Bryan, 145; 
and Vermont, 145; 146; 164; 
168; appeal of, Vice-President 
Bryan on, 169-170; 181; 182- 
3; 186; 189-90; letter of Mr. 
Bryan, on, 190-91-2-3-4; Abo- 
lition Act, 195, et seq.; pro- 
cess, 198 ; in Mass., 198 ; 206 ; 
197-8. 

"Sloop Active" case, 159; 160; 
161 ; 175 ; 179 ; 204 ; 206 ; 209- 
10-11-12. 

Smiley, John, 258; 318. 

Smith, Col. James, 119. 

Smith, Samuel, 25; and wife, 
Mary, 26. 

Smith, Col. Thomas, 120; 233. 

Smith, Provost William, Z2; 
34; 83; 144; 200; 202; 203; 
256; 258; 344. 

"Society of Cincinnatus," 300. 

South Carolina, 161. 

Sovereignty, location of, in 
the individual, 101 (see Po- 
litical Philosophy) ; Judge 
Hopkinson on, 297 (see Po- 
litical Science). 

Spain, 11; 42; and the west, 
273. 

Specie, in U. S., in 1788, 325-6. 

Stamp Act Congress (of 1765), 
66; 67-8; wag's description 
of, 68; organization of, 69; 
addresses and memorials of, 
69-70; Rodney's account of, 
70-71-72; repeal of, 75; 76; 
77; 79. 

Stamp and Sugar Acts, 57 ; 
63 ; 64 ; 65 ; 66 ; repeal of, 7Z ; 
75. 

Stamped Paper, in Philadelphia, 
72,. 

State Board of War, Penna., 
141. 

State capitol, 268 (see State 
House). 

State House, 9; 10; (see Pro- 
vince House), 17; 42; 62; 
82 ; changes in, for Assembly, 
162; 212: at Harrisburg, 299 
(see State Capitol). 
State House Library, 202. 
State Legislatures and the Wil- 
son Resolutions, 253. 
States, creation of, in west, 
284 ; rival northern and 
southern, in west, 302. 
St. Clair, General, 258. 



Stuart Kings, 64. 

Sugar Act, 52. 

Sugar and Tea Tax (see Taxa- 
tion, by Parliament). 

"Super-State," 303. 

Supply Bills (see Paper Mon- 
ey). 

Supreme Court, 127; 143: 184; 
220; a fourth justice of, 221 ; 
robes of Justices, 227-8-9 ; 
lawyers in, 229; 237-8; 239; 
240; lawyers in, 241; 242; 
robes of, 250; 254; as Crim- 
inal Court, 255 ; 256 : 265 ; 
289; and politics, 297-8; 
339; 340; 341. 

Supreme Executive Council 
see Council, Executive, etc.). 

Surveying As Applied to Por- 
traiture by Hopkinson, 269- 
70. 

"Suspects" (see Dangerous 
Persons), 155. 

Swift, Dean, 18. 

Taxation, by Parliament, 53 ; 
57; 63; 64-5: 77; 79; 83; 
89 ; 90 ; 91 ; 92 ; 99. 

Tea and Sugar Tax (see Taxa- 
tion, by Parliament). 

Tennant, Rev. Gilbert, 25 ; 26. 

"Terrible Uproar," by Judge 
Hopkinson, 249-50. 

Test Oaths, 116; 124; 132; 142; 
162 : reservation to, 162 ; 262 ; 
267: 279; or laws, 301; 335: 
336; 2>Z7. 

"The Nezv Roof" 316. 

Thomas, Governor, 11; 12; 13. 

Thomson, Charles, 24; 81; 82. 

Ticonderoga, 35. 

Tie vote, notable, 67. 

Tories, 105; 132; 173; 207; 235; 
257; 301; 303; 335. 

Township vs. tract, or northern 
vs. southern mode of settling 
in western lands, 285. 

Trade balance and paper mon- 
ey, 10 (see Paper Money). 

Trade exploitation, 10 (see 
Paper Money). 

Trade, in Penna., in 1786, 
George Bryan on, 301. 

Transportation, routes west- 
ward, 43. 

Treasurer, of U. S., 288. 

Treaty. Anglo-American, and 
western lands, 253. 



380 



INDEX 



Tucker, Dean, 104. 
Turgot, 117. 

"Unconstitutionality,'' of Stamp 
Act, 75 ; 83. 

Union, of Colonies, 12 ; 28-9- 
30; 92; 104. 

United States, first embryo con- 
stitution of, 117; second (see 
Confederation, Articles of). 

University of Pennsylvania, 
201; (see College of Phila- 
delphia) ; schools of, 202-3; 
Treasurer, 256; estates, 256; 
at Fourth and Arch Streets, 
257; schools in, 257; degrees 
conferred, 257; schools in 
and conditions of, 266; pro- 
posed site, 267; condition of, 
294 ; restores College of 
Philadelphia, 342 ; 344 ; salar- 
ies of professors in, 344; 
Financial Secretary proposed, 
344 ; nevvr buildings of, 345 ; 
"Lodge" building of, 345 ; 
greeting to President Wash- 
ington, 346; first student 
gowns in, 346; reorganiza- 
tion of Medical School of, 
346; prosperity of, 346; 353; 
union of, with College of 
Philadelphia, 354 ; condition 
of ; 354. 

Valley Forge, 151 ; 152. 

Venus, Transit of, 83. 

Vermont, and slavery (see 
Slavery), 109. 

Vice-Admira.lty Court, 7. 

Vice-President (see Council 
Executive). 

Virginia's action, 85 ; 97-8 ; 99 ; 
letter on, 133; on a constitu- 
tional convention, national, 
298; 342. 

Virginia, claims, 168; boundary 
commission, 175; 176-7-8-9; 
216; 233. 

Wallace and Bryan, 19 ; 22. 
Wallace, James, 18; 19. 
Wallis, Samuel, release from 

debtor's prison, asked by 

George Bryan, 24. 
War money, distribution of, 

39. 



Washington, Col. George, 106; 
General, 152; 153; Presi- 
dent, and University degree, 
257; popularity of, 303; 311; 
312; University greeting to, 
346. 

Washington county, 259. 

Wavne, Gen. Anthony, 162; 
258; 278. 

"Well-born," 316. 

Western Lands, 233; 253; 257; 
283-4-5-6. 

Westmoreland county, 259. 

Whartons, John and Joseph 
("Duke"), 135-6. 

Wharton, Samuel, 136. 

Wharton, Thomas, 40; 102; 
131; 133; 134; 135; 136; 138; 
139; 144; 149; 151; death 
of, 153. 

Wheat, American, demand for, 
in 1788, 324. 

Whigs, 105; 117; and "Furious 
Whigs," "Whig Society," 
117; 141; 157; 304-5; and the 
Revolution, 350. 

White, Rev. William, 81; 94; 
260. 

Whitefield, influence of, in 
Philadelphia, 24-5; 36. 

Whitehall, Robert, 110; 120; 
149; 276-7; 318; and the 
Harrisburg Conference of 
1788, 327. 

Wilcocks, Alexander, 233. 

Willing, Thomas, 40; 44; 54; 
55; 56; 57; 58; 59; 60; 76; 
106; 179. 
Wilson Amendment, to Articles 
of Confederation, giving 
power of the purse to Con- 
gress (see Wilson Resolu- 
tions of 1783). 
Wilson, James, 12-Z; 81; 
sketch of, 94-5-6; 102; 103; 
104; 106; and Massachusetts, 
106; 107; 109; 110: 112; 115; 
116; 117; 119; 120; 122; 123; 
124; 129; 138; 139; 140; 141; 
142; 144; 152; 156; 158; 159; 
162; letter of, 162-3; 163; 
168; 171; and the Republican 
Society, 172-173; 180; 184; 
and "Fort Wilson," 185; 189; 
194 ; 219 ; 228 : 229 ; 233 ; 234 ; 
236; 238; 240; 241; in Con- 
gress, 251; 252; Resolutions 
of, of 19th April 1783, 



INDEX 



381 



i^ 



252-3; 254; 257; 258; 261; 
264; 266; 267; 268; defense 
of the national bank, 271 ; 
273; 274; 279-80; and the 
Wilson Resolutions and New 
Jersey, 281 ; home of 282 ; 
287; and Republicans, 299; 
and the pre-convention activi- 
ties, 302; 307; and the first 
exposition of the national 
constitution, 308; Centinel on, 
313; "fabricator" of the na- 
tional constitution, 314; 315; 
6 ; "architect" of the na- 
tional constitution, 316-7 ; 
319; as Chief Justice, 319; 
burned in effigy, 322; and 
celebration of new na- 
tional constitution at Phila- 
delphia, 326 ; 327 ; 335 ; 
"confessedly has had the 
principal share in framing 
the constitution, and its 
greatest advocate," 336; as 



"James, the Caledonian," 
ZZ7; 345; 346; 347; 348; 
349; history of the "junto" 
of, by Centinel, 350, ct seq., 
353; lectures on Political 
Science and Law, 353 ; 354. 

Wilson Resolution, 19th April, 
1783, and power of the purse, 
252-3 ; 261 ; 279 ; success of, 
279-80; and states' actions, 
280; 281; 302; 303; 304; as 
beginning of complaint 
against powers of Congress, 
334. 

Wilson, Woodrow, 130. 

Workman, Professor, 317. 

Wynkoop, Judge, 254. 



Yeates, Jasper, 229; 233; 241. 

York, national capital, 148; 
court house capitol of, 148. 

Young, Dr. Thomas, and Ver- 
mont, 117. 






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